CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 The ^state of L.L.'-'eaman 
 
■DATE DUE 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BX8915 .G81 
 
 Book of remembrance / by David Gregg ; c 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 470 113 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029470113 
 
A Book of Remembrance 
 
J^ ^^C-^t-lA^ ^^-^Jl^ 
 
 
 f 
 
A Book 
 Of Remembrance 
 
 By 
 DAVID GREGG, D.D. 
 
 Compiled by 
 FRANK DILNOT 
 
 A book of remembrance was written before him." 
 
 — Malachi 3:16. 
 
 New York Chicago 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1921, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 \f. 
 
 /-" ; X2 
 
 ij -7 
 
 New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street 
 
Foreword 
 
 ON the morning of October eleventh, nineteen 
 hundred and nineteen. Dr. David Gregg, 
 only twelve hours removed from virile 
 geniality and mellow words, went from among those 
 whom he had loved and with whom he had lived for 
 a long span of years. He had wondered how it 
 would come, that passing. Throughout an eventful 
 and happy life he had contemplated the transition, 
 had surveyed it with an expectation and a calm as- 
 surance which is not within the temperament of the 
 average religious man or woman however devout. 
 The dread of death was not in him. " He was mas- 
 ter of his fate, captain of his soul." Well may we 
 seek the secret. 
 
 The death of Dr. Gregg derived its inspiration 
 from his life. With a rich and storied character, 
 with a wit that spared not saint or sinner, with a 
 sympathy which drew to him the stricken and the 
 sore at heart, he was in the best sense of the word a 
 man of the world, a scholar, a traveller, with few 
 illusions, and the gentlest heart. He could be tender. 
 Fears were not in his make-up. And so it came about 
 that this great Christian was a friend and confidant 
 not merely of the devout but of men who negatived 
 religion entirely and of those who differed as to 
 dogma and who practically never went to church. Dr. 
 Gregg's power in the pulpit and his gift of adminis- 
 
 5 
 
6 FOEEWOED 
 
 tration were manifested in the various positions to 
 which he was called. His literary talent had been 
 manifested to tens of thousands in his books. It is 
 not to demonstrate these things that this work has 
 been compiled. It has been put together in order to 
 show David Gregg, the man, — some of his inmost 
 thoughts, — to indicate the workings of his mind, to 
 place on record some of the facts of history, some of 
 the great books, some of the great lives that helped 
 to mold the activities of a vigorous mind and imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 Dr. Gregg, a man of the intensest private industry, 
 wrote diligently every day in his note-book reflections 
 and facts for his own guidance. They present a 
 many-sided view of life, life in the past, and in the 
 present, and in the future. His comments and 
 his lines of thought will have an interest far 
 outside church circles, but will also be of out- 
 standing value to those engaged in the church 
 ministry, particularly, perhaps, to those who are 
 entering on that work. They give in concentrated 
 form an idea of the reactions of a gifted brain 
 throughout two generations. They are the more 
 valuable because they were not intended for the pub- 
 lic eye. Among Dr. Gregg's memoranda was the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 " This writing is wholly personal and private, in- 
 tended only for auto-communion. So many inci- 
 dents in one's life, which at the time of occurrence 
 were interesting and were thought absolutely unfor- 
 gettable, slip out of memory altogether or come forth 
 only at long intervals that it is well to keep them in 
 sight by a visible and permanent record. That is all 
 this record is intended to do — to keep the happenings 
 
FOEEWOED 7 
 
 of the author's past life in sight that he may have 
 fellowship with himself. This writing is in no sense 
 a public document. It is wholly a matter between 
 myself and me." 
 
 The family of Dr. Gregg have come to the con- 
 clusion after careful perusal of these note-books that 
 not only will there be no breach of confidence in the 
 publication of a selection from them but that they 
 will give a helpful interest and stimulation to a wide 
 circle who knew Dr. Gregg and his work, and may 
 not be without their value for others beyond this 
 circle. They have been coordinated but not altered. 
 There has been no attempt to smooth them into a 
 more rotund form. Exclamations, occasional repeti- 
 tions, short sentences serve to indicate the workings 
 of the writer's mind and give a freshness that la- 
 bored effort might perhaps have dissipated. 
 
 It is well before setting out the words and 
 thoughts of a man to have some indication of what 
 he was and what he did in life. Born in Pittsburgh 
 of Covenanting stock and destined for the ministry 
 he became, after a successful college career and con- 
 siderable travel in Europe, the pastor of the Third 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church in New York City. 
 ' Though a very young man his work was marked by 
 almost immediate success. He was elected to be 
 moderator of the General Assembly of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church, being at that time the young- 
 est person who had ever presided over the delibera- 
 tions of that body. Growing and broadening as the 
 years went on he found that his Christian principles 
 could not be confined within the tenets of Conve- 
 nanterism, and thus it was that in 1887 he accepted 
 a call and went to the Park Street Congregational 
 
8 FOEEWORD 
 
 Church in Boston. In this ministry his power as a 
 preacher brought him into notice far beyond local 
 confines. Within a comparatively short time he was 
 one of the great religious figures of the decade. He 
 came to Brooklyn in charge of the Lafayette Avenue 
 Church, succeeding Dr. Cuyler, where he built up one 
 of the great religious organizations of the country. 
 His fame spread far and wide and visitors to his 
 church included many of the most distinguished men 
 of the time. In 1902 he was chosen President of 
 Western Theological Seminary, and in 1909 he was 
 made President Emeritus. In these few sentences is 
 given the framework of a powerful life. Honors 
 came to David Gregg in profusion; he was made 
 Doctor of Divinity by New York University, and 
 Doctor of Laws by Washington and Jefferson Col- 
 lege, his Alma Mater. Among his distinctions was 
 the LL.D. conferred upon him by Livingstone Col- 
 lege, a colored institution, out of gratitude for the 
 influence he had consistently wielded in behalf of the 
 negroes from the Civil War onward. 
 
 Dr. Gregg was not a man who believed that re- 
 ligion should be doleful or that an air of martyrdom 
 always accompanied sainthood. A penetrating hu- 
 mor derived from his Scotch and Irish ancestors gave 
 point to his words and frequently pushed home its 
 lesson. One secret of his power was a tempera- 
 mental sympathy which enabled him to be in imme- 
 diate touch with all sincere people whatever their 
 views and whatever their feelings. Sensitive to a 
 degree he had a personal modesty which perhaps 
 occasionally detracted from what might have been 
 the power of his natural gifts, but if it did this also 
 made him the more lovable. In the notes that follow 
 
FOEEWOED 9 
 
 there will be found abundant manifestations of the 
 fibre of his mentality and the character of his mental 
 outlook. There will be found spiritual exaltation, a 
 profound belief in personality, in the human soul as 
 distinct from mere theory. With the gift of lumi- 
 nous phrase Dr. Gregg was no word maker and there 
 was no sentence that he framed that did not contain 
 a thought. His words, moreover, have this supreme 
 appeal that he lived from start to finish in accord 
 with what he spoke and wrote. His death leaves a 
 wide space in many lives. Those who remain may 
 find comfort in the concluding words of Dr. Albert- 
 son in his funeral sermon in Lafayette Church. 
 " His death is not the sinking of an evening star in 
 the darkness of night, but the fading of a morning 
 star lost to our view by the brightness of the day." 
 
 Frank Dilnot. 
 New York. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. Religion 13 
 
 Christ— The Bible— Bible Helps— The Church- 
 Ministers — Little Sermons — Prayers — God's Logic 
 — The Human Will — The Lord's Supper — Evi- 
 dences for Eternity — Nature and the Eternal — 
 Science and the Soul — Death — Prophets — The 
 Jews — Puritanism. 
 
 II. Christian Virtues 96 
 
 Faith — Love — Sympathy — Truth — The Heroic Heart 
 — Thanksgiving — Inspiration — Self-Examination 
 — Maxims. 
 
 III. The State 117 
 
 Patriotism — Statesmanship — Peace and War. 
 
 IV. Society 120 
 
 Great Lives — Personalities — Duties — Work — Desires 
 — Denunciation — Defeat — Punish ment — High So- 
 ciety — Wealth — Women — Companionship — Elo- 
 quence — Conversation — Development — Youth and 
 Age. 
 
 V. Marriage and Family Life . . -149 
 
 The Wedded State — Fathers and Mothers — Children. 
 
 VI. History AND Travel . . . .152 
 
 History — Travel. 
 
 VII. Art 162 
 
 Beauty — Symbolism — Music — The Theatre. 
 
 VIII. Philosophy and Literature . . • ^7^ 
 
 Philosophy — Literary Art — Study — Reading — Writ- 
 ers and Non-Writers — Prose Writers — Poets — The 
 Personal Side — Side Lights — Illustrations — The 
 Classics — Narrative — Words — Religion in Books — 
 Ethics — Humor — The Reasoners — The Common 
 People — Shakespeare — Carlyle — Comparisons — 
 Books Summarized. 
 
 Alphabetical Index 253 
 
 II 
 
RELIGION 
 CHRIST. 
 
 EVEN a name may be transfigured. The name 
 Jesus is a notable example. No name recalls 
 so much, or foretells and guarantees so much. 
 It is for us as John said: " the lamp of the Godhead 
 itself." All the glory of the Godhead shines through 
 it. True it was written in contempt above His cross 
 in Hebrew, and culture and the power of Empire 
 united to deride Him. But lo, and behold, Greek, the 
 language of culture in which He was mocked, is dead. 
 Lo, and behold, Hebrew, the sacred tongue in which 
 religion embalmed Him, is dead. 
 
 Thou hast given us Jesus Christ as a model. He 
 gives us right and elevating conceptions of God. He 
 raises our conceptions. He revives the ideals that 
 are beginning to fade out. He tones up our spiritual 
 eyes so that they discern things accurately, rightly, 
 and clearly. 
 
 Christ Himself and the things of Christ create a 
 longing for Christ. His presence renews us and 
 gives us a new life; rekindles our love, and calls for 
 prolonged and intimate communion. He makes all 
 things new. He made the Old Testament a new book 
 to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. 
 
 Learn from Paul how to deal with Him. " I will 
 
 13 
 
14 A BOOK OF BEMEMBEANCB 
 
 show you all the glory of Greece," said an ancient 
 Spartan to his friend and so saying he took him to 
 Solon, the Spartan lawgiver. " Is this all ? " asked 
 his friend. " Yes, this is all," replied the ancient. 
 " When thou hast seen Solon, thou hast seen all." 
 We know what the ancient meant. Solon made 
 Greece. What he thought Greece became. He was 
 the typical Grecian. Christ is the typical Christian. 
 He carries in Him all our present and our future. 
 He has glorified our nature and to be like Him is the 
 pinnacle of Christian privilege. He who sees Christ 
 sees Christianity and all the glories and privileges 
 which Christianity brings to the human race. 
 
 Keep yourself in the Christ atmosphere. An artist 
 spends hours and days in the Louvre, Paris, or in the 
 Pitti Palace, Florence. He bows before the master- 
 pieces of the great of old. He worships their em- 
 bodied ideals of beauty. He breathes their air until 
 their power of loveliness has molded his taste. This 
 is part of his growth and his transformation. It is 
 his equipment. It is his education. 
 
 Regard the impact of the personality of Jesus of 
 Nazareth on mankind ! He is the fulfillment of 
 everything we find in our nature. He is the greatest 
 power in the human world. He is a history, a career, 
 a revelation, a religion, a civilization, a golden age. 
 
 Professor Burkitt calculates that our Gospels pre- 
 serve for us incidents from perhaps forty days of the 
 life of our Lord, yet this is really adequate. Jesus 
 is more truly known than any other character of his- 
 tory. 
 
RELIGION 15 
 
 The fourth Gospel Is a wonderful masterpiece. 
 Like the Socrates of the Platonic Dialogues, the Jesus 
 of the fourth Gospel is removed from the domain of 
 actual history to the realm of the ideal. 
 
 Ruth and Boaz were ancestors of Jesus Christ, the 
 Messiah. In the soul of Jesus the wedding-bells of 
 Ruth and Boaz are rung once more. What is it but 
 the sound of those bells that He hears, when He cries 
 out: " Many shall come from the east and the west 
 and from the north and the south and shall sit down 
 with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of 
 God." 
 
 Whoever Jesus is. He in interesting. His life is 
 interesting. His sayings are interesting. His per- 
 sonality is interesting, tremendously interesting. I 
 can conceive of no higher ideal than the Christ we 
 know. 
 
 While the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God was 
 not absolutely new, the emphasis which Jesus laid 
 upon it was original. 
 
 The subllmest thing in human history is Jesus and 
 His redeeming passion. 
 
 Never an untruth of the Master has been discov- 
 ered. Why? There is none. 
 
 Christ is unique and perfect. Everything in Him 
 corresponds and harmonizes with every other thing. 
 Deity dwells in Him: and everything fits into that. 
 Let us see the truth of this. He spake wonderful 
 words, golden sentence followed golden sentence as 
 
16 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANOB 
 
 He set before the world the Fatherhood of God, the 
 brotherhood of men. His parables were like finished 
 pictures from the studio of a Raphael; His promises 
 were like anthems from harps of gold; His words 
 about Heaven were as though the Apocalypse were 
 rolled up into a single verse. 
 
 Let no one destroy your individuality. Christ does 
 not do that. He takes you, He lives in you. He uses 
 you. The botanist grafts twenty varieties on to the 
 rose-bush, but each rose is itself. Paul, Peter, John, 
 are all different and distinct. 
 
 Jesus was a sower; the field in which He sowed 
 was time, the ages. 
 
 Jesus Christ while on earth, so far as we know, 
 came into contact with no supremely great men. But 
 what of this? This is no derogation. For since His 
 ascension He has by the Gospel been triumphantly 
 tested and measured with the great of all time. For 
 twenty centuries He has been put into comparison 
 and contrasted with the great in human history, with 
 genius at its best; with character at its purest; with 
 personality at its highest, and with this result, that the 
 comparison and contrast have in no way destroyed 
 the supremacy of the Master. They have enhanced 
 it. As the Christ of history He is what He is as the 
 Christ of the Epistles and the four Gospels; He is 
 Lord and Master of all. Genius kneels to Him and 
 the holiest of men worship at His feet. 
 
 If you spend an evening with a man stronger than 
 you are, you come away stronger. Hours spent with 
 Christ mean wider horizons, clearer intellect, keener 
 
EELIGION 17 
 
 vision; we shine with Christ's glory as Moses shone 
 with the glory of God. 
 
 Jesus is the equation of God. He is the human 
 climax. His is the prismatic life. You know what the 
 prism does; it glorifies the sunbeam. It turns it into 
 rainbows. He touched life to finer issues. He is 
 God's prism; He beautifies the truth. 
 
 Our Christ has taken possession of everything 
 great and grand in our age. Rather, I should say, 
 He has made that which is great and grand. The 
 highest altruism of the world is His, i. e., man living 
 for his fellowman. 
 
 The manward side of Christianity stands out in 
 beautiful proportions for the world to admire and 
 reproduce. Are the moralities of the world brighter 
 to-day than ever before? It is because Christianity 
 has shaded them with brighter hues. 
 
 Christ is in the front rank everywhere. He leads 
 in theology. There is no dispute about that. He 
 leads in education. Almost all of the American col- 
 leges were founded in His name, Harvard, Yale, 
 Bowdoin, Brown, Princeton, Columbia, Ogelthorpe. 
 Only a few state universities are exceptions. Christ 
 leads in the world of books. He leads in art and 
 painting, in the masterpiece of the brush and chisel. 
 In music, Christian civilization is the great factor of 
 the world's history. 
 
 Christ is full of fine appreciations; there is tonic 
 and strength in His example; He has recreated many 
 a soul. 
 
18 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 We see different grand glories in the Master 
 through different media. His prayers, His parables, 
 His beatitudes, His conversations, all shine with wis- 
 dom. Different things in Him, all structural, give 
 different glories when the New Testament changes 
 the focus of vision, and uses the facet of the Cross. 
 It is the humming-bird changing its resplendent throat 
 from blue to bright crimson. The glory of the Mas- 
 ter's love shines forth, woos and wins and captures 
 us and controls our admiration and our devotion. 
 
 A reading of the wonderful Marcus Aurelius for- 
 tifies one, but it does not console; the reading of the 
 Gospel of Jesus both fortifies and consoles. We need 
 to be both fortified and consoled. 
 
 The little child was asked, " Do you want to be 
 like Jesus ? " He replied, " I want to be like 
 Mamma." Blessed is the mother who becomes the 
 vision splendid to her child. 
 
 Gounod had painted on his piano the head of the 
 Master. " Before I begin to compose," he said, " I 
 look upon that face, and His spirit possesses me." 
 
 The vision of God leaves its stirring, its stirring 
 memories behind. Character is caught, not taught. 
 The man who lives in the society of the highest 
 catches its culture. It is a transforming power. 
 They who behold Christ admiringly have Christ 
 formed within them. 
 
 If your religion does not change you, then you had 
 better change your religion. 
 
 Christ can use us as the artist uses the canvas. 
 
EELIGION 19 
 
 The result of the canvas is with the artist. You 
 know the starting point and you know the ending. 
 It is this, a piece of cloth the starting point, a Mes- 
 sonier the ending point. A piece of cloth, a Millais. 
 Saul, the persecutor, Paul, the chief of the Apostles. 
 
 The child's question, " Mamma, is Jesus like any- 
 body I know ? " There ought to be men and women 
 in every part of Christendom who are exponents, 
 symbols, likenesses of Jesus Christ. Francis of 
 Assisi was said to be more like Him than any one 
 since His day. It would take the best part of a 
 thousand carefully selected Christians to make a 
 Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 The difference between our relations to Christ and 
 all other relations is we outgrow all other relations. 
 
 To believe in Christ is salvation. 
 To walk in Christ is holiness. 
 To die in Christ is victory. 
 
 The manifold Christ is the living bridge that spans 
 the unfathomable gulf between God and man. 
 
 What outlooks and prospects we have in Christ. 
 The Master is an inspiration undying. He inspired 
 Stephen's death. He gave him his dying. In this 
 item of death Stephen was Jesus over again. He 
 died forgiving his enemies, and he died committing 
 his spirit into safe hands. 
 
 Christ's teachings have lent thrill to Handel's 
 music, and beauty to Raphael's canvas, and majesty 
 and massiveness to Angelo's cathedrals and inspired 
 the songs of genius. 
 
20 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 Renan, whose prose is said to be sweeter than the 
 poetry of most poets, whose style is perfect music, 
 whose words drop from his pen as pearls from a 
 casket, and whose polished sentences are like the 
 facets of a diamond, eulogizes Jesus thus: "What- 
 ever be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never 
 be surpassed. His worship will go on without ceas- 
 ing; His legend will call forth tears without end; 
 His sufferings will melt the noblest hearts. All ages 
 will proclaim that among the sons of men there is no 
 greater than Jesus." 
 
 Jesus emphasizes the laws of God. 
 He based Himself on experience. He believed in 
 prayer. 
 
 The world needs a heightened emphasis on Jesus. 
 Carlyle's name for Luther was " A great son o£ 
 Fact " ; Jesus was the " Son of Fact." 
 
 Christianity is not so much a philosophy as it is a 
 loyalty to a life — the life which was manifested in 
 
 Christ. 
 
 The early Quakers taught that in every human 
 being is a seed of Christ, which under proper culti- 
 vation will blossom and bear fruit. This was their 
 doctrine of total depravity. Believe it for your com- 
 fort and inspiration. 
 
 The Christ that contradicts the highest instincts of 
 our nature at their best is not the true Christ. 
 
 Augustine says: "What is called the Christian re- 
 ligion has existed among the ancients; and was not 
 absent from the beginning of the human race until 
 
EELIGION 21 
 
 Christ came, from which time the true religion which 
 existed already began to be called Christianity." 
 
 The Master Himself looked forward to His death 
 for the most far-reaching and compelling results. 
 He was always anticipating it, and preparing His 
 disciples for it before it came; the Cross was the di- 
 vine event towards which His whole life moved. He 
 came to give His life a ransom for many. It was to 
 attract all men to Him. Hence, the prominence His 
 death has in the Gospel story. All of the Evangelists 
 record the passion. Almost one-third of Matthew's 
 Gospel, almost two-fifths of Mark's, one-fourth of 
 Luke's, well-nigh one-half of John's is taken up with 
 the events of the one week of the end of His life. Of 
 twenty-one chapters nine are taken up with the last 
 twenty-four hours of His wonderful life. Only two 
 of the Evangelists tell the story of His birth ; two of 
 His temptations ; only two recount the Sermon on the 
 Mount; but every one of them enlarges on the 
 tragedy of His death. The way they describe it is 
 striking. There is no comment, there are few adjec- 
 tives, no purple patches. 
 
 Jesus rarely uses polysyllables. The great writers 
 of the world are simple. Deep water is clear, only 
 puddles are muddy. " I am the Bread of Life." He 
 nowhere calls Himself the wine of life. He is not a 
 stimulant, He is a staple. He is fundamental. 
 Marvellous man, this Man of Nazareth ! He staggers 
 me by His assumptions. They are so daring. His 
 " I ams." Some are willing to surrender all that they 
 may be considered modern. They give up the his- 
 torical. They assure us that our faith is secure even 
 if there are no facts to secure it or confirm it. That 
 
22 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Christ is simply a name for a religious experience; 
 that Christ did not make Christian faith; Christian 
 faith made Christ ; the critics would make God a dead 
 name. Maurice once said, with a touch of irony, 
 speaking of Carlyle, that he, Carlyle, believed in a 
 God who lived until the death of Oliver Cromwell. 
 No, He is to-day a living power. The Christian 
 Church is built on Christ's resurrection. Oh, we can- 
 not dismiss this man Jesus! 
 
 Christ chose preaching as a means of reaching uni- 
 versal dominion for the truth. Our Lord used every 
 art of speech to make His message known. He used 
 the street story to reach the hearts and minds of men. 
 
 " Son of Man." This title is applied by Jesus to 
 Himself about half a hundred times in the New 
 Testament. This is not accidental. His life is a 
 perpetual school for all ages. 
 
 The Apostle to whom Jesus committed the care of 
 His mother does not mention her in his memorial of 
 the Master. Bushnell says: "The divine wisdom 
 somehow took her aside with a set purpose not to let 
 her mix her human story products, beautiful and 
 graceful as they were, with Christ's immortal life 
 word from above." 
 
 Our philosophers have become pragmatic in their 
 reasoning. They ask for results. What has Christ 
 done to enrich the world? What is He of a prac- 
 tical force? What is Calvinism? What has come 
 out of the movement? Christianity has nothing to 
 lose by comparison, or by being treated practically. 
 When this comparative work is done, the grandeur, 
 
RELIGION 23 
 
 the beauty, and the force of the Christian rehgion 
 will stand out. As one ascends the mountains of 
 Switzerland, the higher one rises the higher Mont 
 Blanc appears, and so it is with Christianity com- 
 pared with the ethnic religions. 
 
 Christ's tenth legion. It enrolls the highest names 
 of history, the transformed Augustine, the golden- 
 mouthed Chrysostom, the self-sacrificing Francis of 
 Assisi, the good and terse John Bunyan, the stern 
 and strong Oliver Cromwell, Baxter, Thomas Chal- 
 mers, Frederick Maurice, F. W. Robertson, and 
 myriad others. 
 
 Christ is the fulfillment of everything we find In 
 our nature. In Him we are complete. 
 
 Make Jesus Christ your passion. May we make 
 our plans for life while we are in our Pentecostal 
 moods, and during our luminous hours. 
 
 The Master is set forth by characterization rather 
 than by narrative. This is the way Bushnell sets Him 
 forth. His personal traits are made to shine. 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 Make the word of God living and active to-day In 
 our midst. To read the Bible — may it be to read 
 oneself? The Book is a reader of men. It is quick 
 to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. It 
 pierces to the very center of man's inner life. 
 
 We all bring a great part of what we find in the 
 Bible to the Bible. We find in it what we go to find. 
 
24 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 The peculiarity of the Bible is that you read things 
 into it, quite as much as you read things out of it. 
 
 The Book of Psalms — a book that begins with a 
 benediction and ends with a Hallelujah. 
 
 Westcott says : " It does not appear that any special 
 care was taken in the first ages to preserve the Books 
 of the New Testament from the various injuries of 
 time or to insure perfect accuracy of transcription. 
 They were given as a heritage to man, but it was some 
 time before man felt the full value of the gift. The 
 original copies soon disappeared. The canon was not 
 settled until about the year 550 a. d. Prior to that 
 people chose and judged for themselves. The New 
 Testament was rather tumbled into the world than 
 edited." 
 
 Make a sifted use of the Old Testament. 
 This is what Jesus did. He discriminated. 
 
 There are great texts — utterances of the Master — 
 which if you learn and fathom and respond to with 
 the fervor and faith of your being, will make you 
 Christlike, yea, a second Christ in the world of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Homer is a book of life; so is the Bible. 
 
 The humming-bird a fairy in feathers. Exquisite 
 creature! The incarnation of beauty. The male bird 
 is arrayed in gorgeous colors; sometimes it is the 
 throat that is luminous; in other species a halo of 
 radiance is on the crown; in others the tail is bril- 
 liant. One kind of humming-bird changes its throat 
 instantly from vivid fire-color to light green; another 
 
RELIGION 25 
 
 from bright crimson to blue; this alteration is made 
 possible by the fact that the hues of these feathered 
 jewels are attributable not to pigments, but to struc- 
 ture. Each feather has a myriad of facets so placed 
 as to present many angles to the light, hence the pe- 
 culiar rainbow effect. It is the light that is the 
 beauty. Sunshine is specialized light. Change the 
 angles of the facets and so change the colors. The 
 New Testament is the humming-bird of variegated 
 beauty. When it uses the facet of the Sermon on 
 the Mount to show the glory of the Master, what a 
 flood of splendor there is! How the different angles 
 of the Beatitudes glow and corruscate and pour 
 forth the brilliance of His matchless wisdom! 
 
 A profound German thinker gives it as his judg- 
 ment that in no book are there to be found such revo- 
 lutionary utterances as in the Gospel. Yes, the Gos- 
 pel is radical. It searches to the root of things. 
 Things in their simplicity, relations in their purity, 
 ideas in their transcendency, powers in their spring, 
 these are the things the Saviour deals with. All 
 shows and shams are easily pierced through by the 
 keen shafts of His words. The light floods all the 
 air while He is speaking. Surroundings and circum- 
 stances become nothing; the essential thing, the spirit, 
 becomes all in all. 
 
 Doxologies follow visions, and visions come from 
 holy contemplation and withdrawal from the world, 
 and the cultivation of the Pentecostal mood. It was 
 when John was withdrawn from the world in the se- 
 clusion and isolation of the Isle of Patmos and was 
 in the spirit on the Lord's Day that he had his apoca- 
 
26 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 lyptic vision which not only thrilled him but which 
 has thrilled all Christendom as well. His book is 
 filled with doxologies, and these doxologies almost al- 
 ways follow visions. Example, Rev. 5: 13. 
 
 Christ was the author of historical Christianity. 
 Paul was the author of applied Christianity. He 
 wrote some of the great chapters of the Book. He 
 offered some of the great prayers of the Book. He 
 planted some of the greatest churches of the Book. 
 He lived one of the greatest and most triumphant 
 lives of the Book. Do you wish to be a duplex ? 
 
 The Book of Genesis. Its object is purely reli- 
 gious, the point being, not how certain things are 
 made, but that God made them. It is not dedicated 
 to science, but to the soul. 
 
 " Without the Bible it is impossible to understand 
 the literature of the English language from Chaucer 
 to Browning" (Nicholas Murray Butler). English 
 literature covers a period of full twelve hundred 
 years. The English are people of a book. 
 
 The influence of the Bible is the language, style, 
 and expression of a man. Its simplicity, originality, 
 directness, and strength tell. It is a model of pure, 
 strong, straightforward speech. True and simple 
 diction has an ethical force. Its language dignifies 
 and moralizes men. It is a standard of speech. It 
 transforms and energizes. It creates spiritual life or 
 genius. 
 
 Characteristics of Bible style are simplicity, direct- 
 ness, concreteness, picturesqueness, dignity, stateli- 
 ness, grandeur, elevation and a noble naturalness. 
 
EELIGION 27 
 
 Fellowship with God made Moses sublimely mag- 
 nificent. He is the great shining pictorial person- 
 ality of the Old Testament. He is the inspiration of 
 his fellowmen. He sees visions for them. He sets 
 things into clear air. He shows the divine side of 
 things. 
 
 Jerusalem, a city full of charm and mystery and 
 beauty, and romance and pathos, and undying sanc- 
 tity that appeals to one's heart. It has multitudes of 
 sacred sites. Canon Farrar says : " There is only one 
 guide book for Jerusalem and that is the Bible." 
 
 The Bible is not a book. It is a whole library. 
 Literature exists to refresh the weary; to console the 
 sad; to enliven the dull and downcast; to increase 
 man's interest in the world; and his joy in living and 
 his sympathy with all sorts of men. 
 
 The story of the Prodigal Son is the limit of reve- 
 lation. 
 
 The eleventh chapter of the Hebrews was picked 
 out of the Old Testament. We must people our 
 hours with lovely presences which refine. Joshua 
 must live with Moses, Elisha with Elijah, Ruth with 
 Naomi, Timothy with Paul. 
 
 We have nothing to fear from the explorations of 
 the convents of Thibet. Max Miiller, than whom 
 there is no better authority on orientalism, says in the 
 introduction of his translation of " The Sacred Book 
 of the East ": " It is sheer futility to assume that the 
 Bible is ever to be dazzled by any other sacred book." 
 
 When I used to come across a stray gem of 
 
28 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEATJTCE 
 
 thought said to be taken from the sacred Books of 
 the Orient this apprehension flashed through my 
 mind; there may be more gems of equal value where 
 this came from. When the Sacred Books of the 
 Orient are possessed by the world in all their fullness 
 and beautifully translated, the Bible may have all it 
 can do to hold its own. Well, we have these Sacred 
 Books at last, they are all on the shelves of the Bos- 
 ton Library and within reach of every hand that wills 
 to handle them. And what is the result? This. 
 When carefully searched through, it is found there is 
 only at best one grain of wheat in them to every 
 bushel of chaff. 
 
 The people of the Bible are the very substance of 
 which our souls are fashioned. 
 
 BIBLE HELPS. 
 
 When in sorrow read John 14. 
 When men fail you read Psalm 37. 
 When you have sinned read Psalm 51. 
 When you worry read Matthew 6: 19-24. 
 Before Church Service read Psalm 84. 
 When you are in danger read Psalm 91. 
 When you have the blues read Psalm 34. 
 When God seems far away read Psalm 139. 
 When you are discouraged read Isaiah 60. 
 If you want to be fruitful read John 15. 
 When doubts come upon you read John 7: 17. 
 When lonely or fearful read Psalm 23. 
 When you forget your blessings read Psalm 103. 
 For Jesus' idea of a Christian read Matthew 5. 
 For Jesus' idea of religion read James 1: 19-27. 
 When faith needs stirring read Hebrews 11. 
 
EELIGION 29 
 
 When you feel down and out read Romans 
 8:31-39. 
 
 When you want courage for your work read 
 Joshua 1. 
 
 When the world seems bigger than God read Psalm 
 90. 
 
 When you want rest and peace read Matthew 
 11: 25-30. 
 
 When you want Christian assurance read Romans 
 8: 1-30. 
 
 For Paul's secret of happiness read Colossians 
 3: 12-17. 
 
 When you leave home read Psalm 131. 
 
 When you grow bitter or critical read 1 Corin- 
 thians 13. 
 
 When your prayers grow narrow and selfish read 
 Psalm 67. 
 
 For Paul's idea of Christianity read 2 Corinthians 
 5: 15-19. 
 
 When you think of investments and fortune read 
 Mark 10: 17-33. 
 
 For a great invitation and opportunity read Isaiah 
 55. 
 
 For Jesus' idea of prayer read Luke 1: 1-13, 
 Matthew 6: 5-15. 
 
 For the prophet's picture of worship that counts 
 read Isaiah 58: 1-13. 
 
 For the prophet's idea of religion read Isaiah 
 1: 10-18, Micah 6: 6-8. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Public prayer should reform and refresh and re- 
 vive the ideals of the people and give them a purified 
 and vitalized Christian life and character. 
 
30 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 A man may become so earnest that he feels he is 
 uttering divine thought. 
 
 Very few of us have any adequate conception of 
 the power of a pure and loyal church. It marches to 
 the music of " Coronation." It carries every good 
 cause to triumph. 
 
 Our comradeship in Christ. In this we have the 
 church universal. By Christ we are linked together. 
 By it we win men to the championship of His pur- 
 pose, to the coming of His kingdom which shall eman- 
 cipate the world from evil. It is a refuge; it is an 
 inspiration ; it is a brotherhood. Our hymn-books are 
 filled with songs that have come out of the heart of 
 Roman, Greek, Anglican, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, 
 Congregationalist, Lutheran, and American Chris- 
 tians. We have a large fellowship in the prayer- 
 books of the churches, made meet for the habitations 
 of the saints in light. 
 
 Help us to partake of the faith of Jesus in the 
 worth of man. There is in a sermon the potency of 
 an Isaiah, a Plato, a Paul, a Dante, a Shakespeare. 
 
 Inside the cathedral! The silence! Sublime 
 spaces, arches, pillars, the whole edifice is instinct 
 with life. Human wealth of intellect is married to 
 celestial grandeurs. 
 
 &' 
 
 A beautiful soul is a religion in itself. It is a bell 
 calling men to worship. The church should be a 
 brotherhood of bells, a set of consecrated chimes of 
 God, filling the air with praises, creating an atmos- 
 phere of worship. 
 
EELIGION 31 
 
 The ideal relative to the church is different to-day 
 from what it was in former days. A man in former 
 days asked, "How can I serve the church?" and he 
 joined the church, as the patriot joins the National 
 Army, for service. To-day a man asks, " How can 
 the church serve me?" and he joins the church for 
 profit, for what he can get out of it. We have 
 largely lost the old ideal of devotion to the church. 
 Catholics hold on to this ideal far better than Protes- 
 tants do. They lead us just here. My point is this. H 
 the church to-day is to meet this prevalent and mod- 
 ern ideal of service it must have a larger equipment 
 than the church of the former days had. It must 
 have a larger corps of workers; it must have more 
 buildings. 
 
 Even the silence of God's house is a companion- 
 able silence. 
 
 MINISTERS. 
 
 May our ministers all the time feel the tug of their 
 people's needs, and the world's need of sympathy and 
 inspiration and courage and cheer. 
 
 The text is a pin-point hole through which we may 
 behold a panorama. 
 
 A rare art is the ability to preach in pictures. A 
 great preacher's style has the poise and the clarity of 
 Greek sculpture. 
 
 Some men's sermons have spiritual power al- 
 though they have not in them many brilliant sentences 
 nor many purple patches. Men travel long distances 
 to hear them pray. In their prayers they neither in- 
 
32 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 suit the Deity with intrusive eloquence, nor assail 
 Him with paradox. They talk with God. 
 
 There is a " Nevertheless " that always qualifies a 
 brave soul's prayer. 
 
 A man who can so speak to his fellowmen as to 
 make them feel that God is speaking to them is a 
 voice of God. 
 
 We must keep in unimpeded contact with God ; this 
 should be our master passion in life. 
 
 There are some great texts of the Master, the utter- 
 ances, which if you learn and fathom and respond to 
 with all the faith of your being, will make you live 
 well and preach well. Put those at the very start into 
 your mind and heart and education and life. 
 
 Moral impulse always makes an orator. 
 
 Some preachers deal too much in coffin nails. 
 
 Let the congregation hold the stop watch. 
 
 The Gospel is put into moving forms; into words, 
 songs, symbols, paintings, windows, characters, life. 
 
 Thomas Guthrie said that in preaching he aimed at 
 three things: 
 
 (a) To prove. 
 (&) To paint, 
 (c) To persuade. 
 His painting with the tongue was as vivid as Rem- 
 brandt's painting with the brush. 
 
 On the minister's lip eternity is burned with a live 
 coal from the altar. 
 
EELIGION 33 
 
 A sacramental character belongs to all true preach- 
 ing. It is an essential. 
 
 He is a scientist who explores the human spirit as 
 well as he who explores the physical universe, a study 
 of the soul inspiring optimism. 
 
 Dr. W. N. Clarke uses the literature of biography 
 and works up a fine lecture. He uses Huxley, the 
 scientist, and Phillips Brooks, the theologian. This 
 production carries in it a world of interest. It is 
 unique. It is up-to-date, and out of the ordinary. 
 It institutes an investigation of vital importance. It 
 is an appeal to thinkers. Study it in full and get 
 from it a new type of sermon. 
 
 Coin rare thoughts into rare words. 
 
 Illustrations fresh, apt, timely, natural, facile, form 
 an element of style that may be called " its vital Ex- 
 pression." 
 
 As the painter in his picture, so the preacher in his 
 sermon aims at producing a fine atmosphere, electric, 
 vital, stimulating. 
 
 Demosthenes' canon is this: — "Every speech ought 
 to begin with an uncontrovertible proposition." 
 
 Literature is an aid to the sermon; it contributes 
 variety, beauty, life, and power. 
 
 A good preacher knows the things to omit. 
 
 The sermon is the greatest and vastest thing in the 
 universe of letters. It is in itself a world of litera- 
 ture, and is all inclusive. The universe belongs to it. 
 
34 A BOOK OP EEMBMBEANCE 
 
 and is serviceable. It should be so used as to give it 
 beauty, variety, conquering power, life, grandeur, 
 thrills, influence, and immortality. The sermon may 
 have the variety, and power, and life that the Bible 
 has. I want to magnify the sermon, reinforce the 
 pulpit by all the poets, artists, journalists, novelists, 
 and orators of the age. Let Lowell, and Bryant, and 
 Holmes, and Longfellow, and Emerson, lend the 
 magic of their verse. Let the pulpit be honored by 
 being the medium of their genius. Turn religion 
 into literature and literature into religion. 
 
 Learn to use the exclamation. Interlard the ser- 
 mon with it. It wakens an audience. It is con- 
 clusive. It is an appeal. It is a vision. 
 
 Preaching is not talking. It is a sacramental act. 
 God, through the spoken word, is brought into sacra- 
 mental union with the hearer. A deed is done. 
 
 What is the principle of inclusion in a sermon? 
 Everything is legitimate that instructs, brightens, 
 emphasizes, beautifies, enriches, and gives power and 
 freshness. 
 
 The rhetorical pause. You know what it is to 
 come to such a pause in the music of some great com- 
 poser. Some symphony of Beethoven, or some ora- 
 torio of Handel. At a given signal from the con- 
 ductor there is a sudden silence over the vast orches- 
 tra that may be felt. Every violin has ceased to 
 throb, every cornet has ceased to sound. After a 
 breathless moment of expectancy the conductor lets 
 his baton fall; then in a twinkle every instrument 
 takes up the strain again, violin, cornet, organ, drum, 
 
EELIGION 35 
 
 cymbal, all, until in a perfect blaze of music the com- 
 position reaches its close. The pause was a prelude 
 to the climax. 
 
 Fortify your idea by ancient lore. Put back of it 
 the minds of great thinkers, make it musical by a line 
 or two of poetry, show a parallel teaching in nature 
 by the aid of the scientist, illustrate it by some great 
 picture on the easel, clarify it by the thinking of 
 Greek philosophy, give it a personification, an incar- 
 nation by introducing some interesting, historical 
 character, make the drama illustrate and sustain it, 
 make it a classic by rallying the classics around it. 
 
 The text must select you. The world needs mas- 
 terpieces; it has time only for these. Give it these. 
 Hold them up. Make them a power among the peo- 
 ple. Read for the people. Think for the people. 
 Instruct the people. Introduce the people to the best. 
 Stimulate the people. Inspire the people. Make the 
 people. Give the people the re-birth. Why should not 
 the pulpit do all this? We have the right to assess, 
 use and utilize everything that will help us in our su- 
 preme purpose. 
 
 St. Pierre read his " Paul and Virginia " in 
 Madame Necker's salon before a distinguished audi- 
 ence, and incredible as it may seem his masterpiece 
 was not appreciated. They yawned and whispered. 
 Not a word of praise. (Moral: — The audience may 
 be in fault. Here the audience was a failure.) It 
 was " Paul and Virginia " that gave him his fame. 
 It appeared 1788. It was translated into many 
 languages. 
 
36 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Our audiences act on our minds. Dull faces with- 
 out a ray of sympathy or a movement of expression, 
 negative faces, — they kill a speaker. 
 
 Of F. W. Robertson, Sir Robertson Nicol writes: 
 " I have been more than ever struck with his severe 
 intellectual life and his really wonderful style. Rob- 
 ertson writing autobiographically of himself says: 
 " I have read hard, never skimming. Plato and Aris- 
 totle and Butler and Sterne and Thucydides and 
 Jonathan Edwards have passed like iron atoms into 
 the blood of my mental constitution." He gave more 
 than he took. His intellectual and spiritual outpour- 
 ing was prodigious. To Robertson preaching was a 
 desperate life-and-death affair. He wrote out his 
 sermons for his friends just after he had delivered 
 them. He was of pure Scotch blood. His father and 
 his mother both belonged to old and famous Scotch 
 families. 
 
 The incoming of God into men's lives. He comes 
 in two ways: 
 
 1. In the form of great truths, principles, and 
 purposes. 
 
 2. Through great fellowship with great lives. 
 
 There are sermons which have millstones about 
 their necks. 
 
 Good serraons- are not constructed, they are 
 evolved. 
 
 Years 'ago the novel was regarded as dangerous 
 to spiritual life. The novel and the theatre were 
 classed together. Now both have recognition as pub- 
 lic benefactors and reformers. 
 
EBLIGION 37 
 
 Look after your thought, harmony, finish and 
 adornment, unity, proportion and quaUty. 
 
 The writer or speaker appeals to the understand- 
 ing, the emotions, the imagination. 
 
 Don't leave your audience bored. Leave it in an 
 elevated mood. 
 
 To think sharply and lucidly is the result of self- 
 discipline. 
 
 Use the language of those addressed, if you would 
 be clear. 
 
 The best instructor is not he who knows the most, 
 but he who imparts the most. 
 
 Write and speak so that >ou cannot be misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 Create the impression of reserve force. You could 
 do more, if you only wished. You have not ex- 
 hausted yourself. 
 
 Vehemence is not vigor. 
 Begin well and end well. 
 
 Keep within the experience of your audience. 
 " Elegance " is that in style which pleases the taste, 
 which gives delight to the workmanslyp. It charms. 
 Emotional words, color, persistence; persistence, — 
 
 that is your motto. 
 
 « 
 
 The object in using figures in writing or speaking 
 is to give clearness, or force, or elegance to the idea 
 presented. 
 
38 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 There are enough figures in the Book of Job to 
 teach the art of using figures. " Man is born into 
 trouble, as the sparks fly upwards." " He maketh the 
 deep to boil Uke a pot." " Thou shalt come to thy 
 grave in a full age, like a shock of corn cometh in his 
 season." 
 
 Repetitions cleverly used are not defects but beau- 
 ties. 
 
 Dullness is the unpardonable sin. 
 
 The essential thing is to convince. 
 
 Make the people coax you to speak on. Pique 
 their curiosity. Make them responsible for your ser- 
 mon. 
 
 Dr. Dods in one of his lectures tells the story of 
 Plutarch, that Caius Gracchus, who was frequently 
 carried away by passion when speaking in public, 
 kept a well-educated slave at his back, who as often 
 as the orator's voice became shrill and discordant, 
 sounded a soft sweet note on his flute, and so restored 
 his master to the proper pitch. 
 
 By anticipation listen for your audience. This will 
 save them from wear and tear. It will put clearness 
 and brevity into your speech. 
 
 Use biography; this wheels into line men and 
 events. 
 
 " The power of the pulpit is this: it is truth passing 
 through personality" (Phillips Brooks). 
 
RELIGION 39 
 
 A creed does not mean limitation but concentra- 
 tion. 
 
 A wide-awake preacher is always on the lookout 
 for a live line, a suggestive fact, a useful analogy, an 
 incident illustrating a principle, a verbal felicity, a 
 fresh point of view. After delivering an extempo- 
 rary oration of singular beauty and effectiveness, 
 Wendell Phillips explained to a friend who asked him 
 how he could do it, " I was forty years at work on 
 that address." A small vial of rich perfume contains 
 the essence of a thousand roses. A telling sermon is 
 generally the distillation of a thousand observations, 
 broodings and experiments. 
 
 The pew has a part in the making of a sermon. 
 
 There is nothing that takes the place of being in- 
 teresting in the pulpit. It is pulpit power. Aim at 
 being interesting. Charles Lamb says: "It is as good 
 as aiming at being dull." 
 
 In preaching, the secret of interest is experience, 
 also reality. The objective is testimony, education, 
 and appeal. Give the things you know at first hand. 
 Self-respecting laymen have their rights. Truth 
 must be personal, a glowing enthusiasm, an intense 
 reality. Truth passes from experience to dogma and 
 then back to formula. The key to unreality in re- 
 ligion is its divorce from experience. The Rabbis 
 talked law. Jesus came and talked to the people 
 about birds and lilies, about ploughs and loaves and 
 fishes. He connected religion with these things. 
 This is what made the Rabbis so angry with Him. 
 But the common people heard Him gladly. Jesus 
 
40 A BOOK OF EEMEMBRANCE 
 
 sought for common ground with His hearers, and so 
 did His Apostles. Beecher says that forty times in 
 the record of the Apostles' propaganda the phrase 
 " you all know " is used. 
 
 The frozen ritualism of the Church must give way 
 to personal and impromptu prayer and adoration. 
 
 The preacher's main instrument is to be his own 
 personality. There must be self-denying study. 
 Avoid spiritual idleness. There are some texts that 
 must be awfully tired; give them a rest. 
 
 The dignified aloofness of some preachers is the 
 worst enemy of their effectiveness. 
 
 God uses regular means of imparting His message 
 to ministers, — experience, study, vision. 
 
 Make Christ your passion. The outgo of Christ 
 from us will be equal to the income of Christ into 
 us. 
 
 Be yourself, your best self. Look after your re- 
 ceptivity. May the congregation go forth from each 
 service exhilarated, with great purposes beating in 
 their hearts. 
 
 LITTLE SERMONS. 
 
 Give us to see the rainbow on every cloud of sor- 
 row. Keep us in touch with great personalities, edu- 
 cate us in our responsibilities. The touch divine of 
 noble natures assimilates. Our soul friends regale 
 our souls. A holy man is more than a man, he is 
 an epoch, he is a golden age. We want in our Church 
 and in our nation public souls. Beautiful souls make 
 
EBLIGION 41 
 
 the world beautiful. The personality of a true Christ 
 man is a gem into which God can pour the Gospel and 
 get it back in flashing colors that charm and thrill. 
 
 The Scribes came to Jesus tempting Him with the 
 purpose to entrap Him and they put to Him this puz- 
 zling question — " Which is the first commandment of 
 all ? " i. e., which is the great commandment ? The 
 question really inaugurates a contest between the 
 wisdom of the Master and the wisdom of the wise 
 of all ages. Jesus is pitted against the masters of 
 Israel, who had made the law their Hfe study, and 
 who knew every jot and tittle and pen-point thereof. 
 Some one has said lately — " Jesus while on earth 
 came into contact with none of the great minds of 
 the ages ; therefore it was that He had His own way." 
 The saying is a mistake. He came into contact with 
 all of the great minds. He had His own way because 
 His way was the best. He was preeminent because 
 He outrivalled all competitors. His enemies used all 
 the great men of Israel, from Abraham and Moses 
 down to the last prophet that they might floor Him 
 before the people and thus minimize and neutralize 
 His influence. This question " Which is the first 
 commandment of all ? " precipitated a contest be- 
 tween Him and the Scribes and the jurists and 
 casuists and the masters of Israel. When He gave 
 His answer, not x man from all the teachers of the 
 ages could be brought forward to match Him or to 
 gainsay Him. " And Jesus answered them the first 
 of all the commandments is — Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul 
 and with all thy mind ; this is the first and great com- 
 mandment and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt 
 
42 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEAFOB 
 
 love thy neighbor as thyself." There is no other 
 commandment greater than these. The question of 
 the Scribes set Jesus at work on the Old Testament. 
 This was His Bible and He did great work here. He 
 evolved the Sermon on the Mount from the Old Tes- 
 tament. This sermon is truth's greatest manifesto. 
 He evolved His Messiahship from it (Luke 
 24: 44^47). My fellowmen, we have a fine piece of 
 scripture exegesis here. We have a rereading of the 
 law, and this rereading brings out the depth of mean- 
 ing contained in the law. It spiritualizes it. The 
 law becomes spirit and life. The word is made flesh. 
 This is a magnificent definition. This is condensa- 
 tion. This is superb summarizing. The great leader 
 excelled in the art of epitome. He knew how to focus 
 things. He put great facts into single words, single 
 verses, single parables. He focalized prayer and gave 
 His disciples that brief form called " The Lord's 
 Prayer." He focalized the whole of redemption and 
 gave literature the greatest verse in the Bible (" For 
 God so loved the world that He gave His only be- 
 gotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should 
 not perish but have everlasting life"). He gave the 
 world a golden rule. He focalized the whole of God 
 in one phrase " The Father." He is just the one to 
 epitomize the law. He does this in the one word, 
 " Love." 
 
 Symbols are educational. The Old Testament 
 Tabernacle is a proof and illustration of this. It in- 
 doctrinated believers of old in the great realities of 
 the true religion. This was its God-given mission. 
 The building was a series of symbols which pictured 
 spiritual facts; and a series of types which predicted 
 
RELIGION 43 
 
 coming spiritual blessings. Its compartments and 
 articles of furniture were sermons from the loom, 
 and the needle and the carpenter's bench, and the 
 chisel of the artificer. The Tabernacle was a voice 
 in the midst of Israel and taught by models and dia- 
 grams and the spectacular. It was a pictorial Gos- 
 pel. It was the believer's Bible. Its sacrifices and 
 altars were object lessons and the acts prescribed by 
 its ritual were holy doctrines. The gleam of gold 
 and the glow of color and the wreath of incense and 
 the smoke of sacrifice, and the outflowing of His 
 glory-cloud, were vocal and instructive. They talked 
 moral and spiritual principles, built up character, de- 
 veloped reverence, and acted as mediums of fellow- 
 ship between God and man. 
 
 These talking symbols are like the alphabet. The 
 alphabet is the greatest invention that was ever made 
 — the marking down of unseen thoughts by written 
 characters. It is a kind of second speech. Speech is 
 a miracle. Poetry is the music of human speech. 
 
 Life has the power of rising above its environment ; 
 of transcending it; of transforming it into something 
 better. Look at the flower! It transforms its sur- 
 roundings into new beauty. It does not conform, it 
 transforms. Look at the rose, the queen of flowers! 
 Planted in the common soil, yet it transmutes this 
 soil into rich lines and sweet fragrance that are the 
 wonder and delight of the world. It is not the slave 
 of the dust, but its master. 
 
 Napoleon the First said: "Madame de Stael is a 
 fine conversationalist. She is a whirlwind in petti- 
 coats." She made a visit to a lady of distinction. 
 
44 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 The lady never got a chance to put in one word dur- 
 ing the two hours. At the close Madame de Stael 
 exclaimed, " What a delightful conversation we have 
 had ! " Many good people think that our speaking to 
 God is the only element in communion with God. 
 Read Thomas k Kempis' " Imitation of Christ " and 
 be instructed. Let the word speak to you; in com- 
 munion God speaks to us. 
 
 Stay persistently in the presence of the best; and 
 the best will take care of itself. Hear persistently 
 the best music; see persistently the best in art; read 
 persistently the best in literature; stay persistently 
 with the best characters. This is the very essence of 
 the growth in life. 
 
 The combination of men produce results. Sir 
 Francis Galton says: "There were fourteen men in 
 Greece in the time of Pericles who made Athens pos- 
 sible." Praxiteles alone could have done nothing. 
 Ictinus might have drawn the plans of the Parthenon, 
 but without Pericles the noble building would have 
 remained the stuff which dreams are made of. They 
 say that without Aspasia Pericles would have been a 
 mere dreamer of dreams. You must let others en- 
 rich you. Have contact with your fellowmen. 
 
 Communion with God gave Moses facial beauty. 
 His very body was a partaker of his transfiguration. 
 This is according to the operation of the course of 
 nature. Our thoughts and loves are chisels working 
 upon our faces. Elevated thoughts remove the lines 
 of sensuality and replace them by the fineness of a 
 lofty self-control. There is not a virtue that will not 
 refine and leave a new fineness and fairness upon the 
 
EELIGIOH 45 
 
 features.. Keep holy the emotions; think exaltedly; 
 feel deeply and purely ; live continently and the divin- 
 ity within will shape the divinity without. The soul is 
 the cardinal beautified. The greatest chemical agency 
 is holy love. It celestializes the face. Look after 
 the raptures to which you yield yourselves! The 
 thoughts you think, the intuitions you trust, the prin- 
 ciples you hold, the purposes you cherish, the loves 
 you allow, the dictates of your conscience, the voli- 
 tions of your will; if these be Godlike, they will make 
 you Godlike. 
 
 We have fallen upon pessimistic times. A mood 
 of weariness has come over the thought of the world. 
 Hear the pessimist! " Man has had his day. Life is 
 played out. All the great songs have been sung, and 
 the great poems written, and the great oratorios com- 
 posed, and the immortal pictures painted, and the op- 
 portunities for heroism have been exhausted." I do 
 not believe it. The autumn is just as rich in fruit as 
 when the earth was young ; and the springtide just as 
 beautiful with flowers. Love to-day awakes at a 
 smile and rises into power as though each young man 
 and young woman were the original pair. Little chil- 
 dren are still happy. Nature is still full of secrets. 
 All the seasons are still young. True religion is still 
 strong, and Jesus Christ is still young. My fellow- 
 men, it is more important than ever to believe that the 
 golden age is still in the future. 
 
 Balzac in his pathetic story, " The Atheist's Mass," 
 tells of one who was the ablest and most successful 
 physician in Paris, admired by scientists and the 
 fashionable people alike. He had come to Paris a 
 
46 A BOOK OF EEMEMBRANCE 
 
 poor lad, and when at the point of utter destitution he 
 was befriended by a man in a very humble position, 
 who gave up his savings and modest ambitions and 
 devoted himself and all his savings to enable the lad 
 to pass his examinations ; and then when the goal was 
 reached, when the tide was at the turn, the man died, 
 having sacrificed himself for another. Atheism was 
 the fashionable creed in Paris, and, of course, the 
 brilliant surgeon and professor was an Atheist. But 
 his Atheism had a hard time of it, for the conscious- 
 ness of a great unselfish love was surging there like a 
 tide through his whole being. Nothing that the years 
 brought could drive out the memory of that sacrifice 
 made for him. He could not weary of it. It was 
 ever fresh. He, and all he was, had literally been 
 bought by blood. It haunted him till behind it, and 
 above it, he saw another sacrifice and a greater, the 
 sacrifice of Jesus Christ, — the Mass set that before 
 him. There is a wonderful eloquence in blood. We 
 need to see the blood to be won over to Christ, but we 
 are won. 
 
 You recall the story which Hawthorne tells relative 
 to a certain spot in the New England hills, the story 
 of the " Great Stone Face." In the story there is a 
 boy named Ernest sitting one evening with his 
 mother, and looking at that noble profile. His mother 
 told how traditions said that some day there was com- 
 ing a man with the same gracious lineaments, a man 
 who should in his own character embody those graces 
 of personality which gave him a right to such a face, 
 which would indeed mold his face into this likeness. 
 The mother's story sank deep into the heart of the 
 boy and he watched the face as a boy and then as a 
 
EBLIGION 47 
 
 youth, and then as a middle-aged man, and finally as 
 an old man. He was wishing for the coming one and 
 was disappointed, yet day after day he was uncon- 
 sciously influenced by this stone face outlined against 
 the New England sky. He had been dwelling upon 
 the beauty of the character possessed by the man who 
 was to resemble it. As he thought he faithfully per- 
 formed the duties of life. One day a famous poet 
 came to see him. They went out together at the set- 
 ting of the sun and Ernest, now an old man, ad- 
 dressed the people as was his wont upon some simple 
 but beautiful theme. As the rays of the sun fell on 
 the great stone face, and then on Ernest's face, the 
 poet exclaimed, " Why, Ernest himself is like the 
 great stone face ! " And he was. Even so uncon- 
 sciously the influence of Jesus Christ works in and 
 upon the believer as he communes with Christ until 
 he is made like the Master. This transfiguration 
 goes on until the words of John are realized. " Be- 
 hold now are we the Sons of God." 
 
 In the Roman Forum there was a little spring 
 called the Virgin Spring, which sang merrily as it 
 broke into the light and passed on its way to the yel- 
 low Tiber. For centuries it was lost sight of. It 
 had not ceased to exist, but it had been clogged and 
 covered by tons of rubbish, as the proud city had been 
 laid low by the hand of the spoiler. In recent years 
 it was rediscovered and opened. It took up the song 
 again and recommenced its useful ministry. This 
 Virgin Spring is mentioned by the historian Livy. It 
 was here in the first and great days of Roman history. 
 In exploring they removed the rubbish and now it has 
 reemerged and is flowing again and is sparkling in the 
 
48 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 light, admired by all. It is a picture of the way 
 Christ is covered in our lives by the rubbish of the 
 virorld. He is crowded back and down. 
 
 In Christ is our defense. In one of the great cities 
 of the continent the regalia is not kept behind iron 
 bars as in the Tower of London, but lies upon an open 
 table. It might appear that any ruthless hand could 
 wrench any jewel from the glittering array, and yet 
 no man dare put out his hand to take one because that 
 table is charged with a strong current of electricity. 
 You cannot see the protection, but it is there. So if 
 only a man will live in the charged circle of daily and 
 hourly communion with Christ, the Devil can no more 
 touch him than a thief can touch those jewels. 
 
 The great masters were swayed by great emotions 
 as they worked over their masterpieces. When da 
 Vinci took up his brush to depict in his famous 
 " Lord's Supper " the face of the Lord, his hand 
 trembled and he was forced to desist. He was moved 
 to reverence. Fra Angelico was inspired by an equal 
 reverence although he had long habituated himself to 
 the practice of the divine presence. He was even 
 sensible that the Jesus of history rose above his lofti- 
 est conception as the heavens lift themselves above 
 the earth.' Was Jesus worthy of all this? There is a 
 tradition that when Angelico stood before the freshly 
 plastered walls of San Marco he took his brush and 
 with many tears and prayers began to paint the dying 
 Christ. To the painter-monk the cross denoted sub- 
 stitution; Christ died to bring us to God. I want to 
 create a right conception and secure a right apprecia- 
 tion of these masters of art who consecrated their art 
 
EELIGION 49 
 
 to Jesus Christ. We shall then expect more from 
 our fellowship with them, and from our study of 
 their productions. They are the Priests and Prophets 
 of God. Their efforts to visualize the Christ parallels 
 the efforts of those who put Christ into words by the 
 use of the inspired pen and gave us the Gospels and 
 the Epistles and the Apocalypse. 
 
 Some build their lives into words and live in litera- 
 ture; some shape themselves into sounds and live in 
 the world's songs; some ensphere themselves in art 
 and give the world statues and canvases and cathe- 
 drals ; so live that your life shall be a glory and your 
 death a passing from glory to glory. 
 
 We let off Moses and David and Solomon on a 
 heap of things we would not stand for now. The 
 world has progressed. 
 
 Ours is a world that pays Socrates with a cup of 
 poison, and Christ with a cross. To Byron, Goethe 
 gave a place among the foremost. France and Italy 
 gave him a praise reserved for Shakespeare alone. 
 Men called Byron the handsomest youth of his time. 
 His beautiful head, his finely chiselled features, his 
 face glowing with feeling, his courtly manners, all 
 lent him the note of distinction. He had the beauty 
 of a Greek God. Yet he perished ere his race was 
 half run. In a reckless, pleasure-loving age, he drank 
 more, lived faster, and was more reckless than any 
 other man. Sin poisoned his genius. In the begin- 
 ning of his career England would have buried Byron 
 in Westminster Abbey, but when he died .his troubled 
 dust was buried in the little churchyard of Hucknall. 
 " How are the mighty fallen ! " Poe starved and 
 
50 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 shivered into the tramp's grave at thirty-nine. Burns 
 found the wolf at his door at thirty-seven. The fiend 
 was gnawing at the heart-strings of Byron at thirty- 
 one. At thirty Shelley passed. Keats died at twen- 
 ty-five. Among the artists Andrea del Sarto had 
 gifts so great that many believed him to stand supe- 
 rior to Raphael himself. His pictures were miracles 
 of beauty. He fell under the influence of a beautiful 
 Jezebel, left his aged parents to starve, and for gold 
 sold his brush to ignoble patrons. He was overtaken 
 by a contagious disease and was carried to a pauper's 
 grave. Burns clothed drinking songs with matchless 
 beauty. Burns' plea is very bold. He affirms that 
 greatness sanctifies whatever it does, that genius is 
 exempt from moral laws. This plea would make all 
 the great men blameless though evil-doers. No, no, 
 when God gives youth power and the maiden beauty, 
 He takes vows from them. 
 
 Different men have different gifts. One ap- 
 proaches truth through a process of reasoning; his 
 expression is in logical form. We call that man a 
 philosopher or a theologian. Another has a sensitive 
 spirit ; to him ideas have the vividness of present real- 
 ities. We call him a seer. What one finds as the re- 
 sult of long and laborious effort the other sees. The 
 Hebrew prophets were seers. They saw truth intui- 
 tively and uttered it poetically. Not one of them was 
 a theologian. They express truth in picturesque and 
 rhythmical forms. Others see truth and express it in 
 sweet sounds. A great musician when he wishes to 
 pray goes into the dark and silent temple and seating 
 himself at the organ lets its majestic tones voice his 
 petition and his praise. Some men have been in- 
 
EELIGION 61 
 
 spired to preach, like Paul ; some to sing, like David ; 
 and some to paint, like the famous artists. A picture 
 may be an expression of a doctrine as truly as a 
 Psalm or a sermon. Great souls have found expres- 
 sion on canvas, hence our art galleries. The master- 
 pieces are symbols and talk. The most beautiful pic- 
 ture in the world is the Sistine Madonna at Dresden, 
 Saxony. It v^^as painted as an altar-piece for a church 
 in Italy. The mother, the ideal woman face, and the 
 Child. Kneeling below is St. Sixtus, a perfect pic- 
 ture of old age, on the other side St. Barbara, only 
 less beautiful than the Virgin. At the bottom of the 
 canvas two cherubs. Raphael always idealized when 
 he painted. This greatest of all paintings contains 
 immortal lessons. Of Mary very httle is recorded. 
 What should be our attitude towards Mary ? She had 
 the greatest honor that ever came to woman — the 
 mother of our Lord. 
 
 There are many paintings of the ocean, but paint- 
 ings of the great mountains are few. Charles Giron 
 holds high place among modern Swiss artists as a 
 painter of Alpine scenery. He sets forth nature in 
 her grandest mood. The peaks are the home of the 
 Gods. Mountains are the backbone of the continents, 
 Japan is the empire of mountains (chief there is its 
 sacred peak Fujiyama), the Alps, the glory of Europe, 
 the Himalayas, the crown of Asia. They are objects 
 to be admired. They have a distinct and beneficent 
 ministry to perform. They give motion to water. 
 -They maintain a constant change in the currents of 
 the air. They cause perpetual change in the soils of 
 the earth. They minister to the sense of beauty in 
 man. The Yosemite as seen from Inspiration Point 
 
52 " A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 is a picture sublime. Three natural objects may be 
 said to make the beauty and glory of the earth, the 
 oceans, the mountains, and the sky. Compare Mont 
 Blanc, fifteen thousand six hundred feet, with the 
 white splendor of Mt. Ranier, fifteen thousand feet 
 in Oregon. They always point men upward. 
 
 It is said of one that he had no art of creating cir- 
 cumstances; opportunities must seek him, else he 
 would plod through life without disclosing the gifts 
 which God hid in him. The gold in the hills cannot 
 disclose itself. It must be sought for and dug. 
 
 Men worship success. Robert Browning shows 
 the working of this theory in his poem " Bishop 
 Blougram's Apology." The story of the poem is 
 this: Two young men classmates separated on gradu- 
 ation day and went their respective ways. One be- 
 came a Bishop. The other reached nothing so far as 
 fame went, but he succeeded in keeping his conscience 
 true and himself true to it. The two met in later 
 years. The Bishop invited his old comrade to dine 
 with him. Over the viands he laid before his college 
 mate the philosophy of life. Half-wise, half-cynical 
 and sneering he pointed out the fact that he had won 
 success, fame, money, power, distinction, honor. 
 His boast was: " I stand here on the pinnacle of fame, 
 but you, poor fellow, when you came to the point 
 where the path turned to fame allowed your con- 
 science to interfere." In the poem Browning makes 
 it clear that at the bottom of his soul the Bishop is an 
 utter sceptic. He does not believe in his creed, nor 
 in the God he worships by ritual, nor in the heaven 
 he seeks to induce men to enter. He does not feel 
 
EELIGION 53 
 
 quite sure of anything except that he is Bishop Blou- 
 gram. Christ's poHcy of life was the very opposite of 
 that. You remember that on one occasion when He 
 spoke the truth, it is recorded, " On that day many 
 went back and followed Him no more." He might 
 have rationally argued, " I am losing my hold on the 
 people; better modify, better cotton a little to the mul- 
 titude, for if I keep them I can influence them." But 
 Jesus did not argue thus. He kept straight on speak- 
 ing the truth. He was left alone. But now His 
 martyrdom has crowned Him with undying influence. 
 
 We vulgarize life. We lose our visions. We 
 should people our hours with lovely presences that 
 refine, inward forces that purify. The intuitions we 
 trust, the principles we hold, the purposes we cherish, 
 the volitions we will, the dictates of conscience whereby 
 we follow the loves we allow to sway us, the visions 
 we entertain, for if these are Godlike, they make us 
 Godlike. Enthrone God in the soul. Translate the 
 eighth chapter of Romans into your life. 
 
 The way to construct a perfect Mosaic is to deal in 
 perfect gems of thought, select them, polish them, cut 
 them, and then store them away for use. Work and 
 construct with masterpieces of others. This will 
 familiarize you with the best, tone up your taste, and 
 give you high ideals. You can deal with them in 
 such a way as to make them your own. They will 
 become part of you, second nature, yes, first nature. 
 By and by you will be able to build up to their level, 
 and to parallel them. The masterpieces of Jesus are 
 Mosaics, — the Lord's Prayer, The Beatitudes. 
 
54 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 The truth always receives its highest expression in 
 and through a person. This Jesus Christ Himself 
 teaches when He says: "I am the truth." Truth in 
 life-form is an authority. In this form it commands 
 and is obeyed. It is light and it reveals. It makes 
 a man luminous. Now a luminous personality is a 
 pillar of fire to the Israel of God. A fine personality 
 is a Shekinah personality. Such a person was St. 
 Columba, the man to whom Northern Britain owes 
 its Christianity. They tell this legend of him. He 
 wanted to make a copy of the Book of Psalms for his 
 own devotional use. The Book was locked away in 
 the cathedral. Stealthily Columba made his way into 
 the church to the repository of the Psalter. But to 
 what purpose? It was pitch dark. Miracle comes 
 into the legend here. When the saint opened the 
 Psalter and took his pen in hand to write, light 
 streamed out of his hand with such radiance that it 
 flooded the sacred pages with the brightness of day. 
 He had a Shekinah hand, and by that hand he made a 
 copy of the Psalter that all who saw coveted. There 
 is a truth lurking in this legend, viz., a fine personality 
 is a Shekinah personality. The man sees things by 
 means of himself, by what he is. His own worth is 
 light, so is his own conscience, and so is his own 
 imagination, and so are his principles, and so are his 
 intuitions, and so are his own experiences. By his 
 own life he can make correct and beautiful copies of 
 the revelations of God, and have these for his own 
 use and for the use of his fellowmen. 
 
 It is said that for the first time have the master- 
 pieces of Handel been disclosed as the great musician 
 conceived them. They had to wait for our improved 
 
EELIGION 55 
 
 instruments of music, and our enlarged appreciation 
 and enthusiasm before they could find a rendering 
 worthy of themselves. He was in advance of his 
 age. So it is with Jesus Christ as a civilization. He 
 had to wait for better mediums of expression. He 
 grows with the centuries, and He needs the centuries 
 in which to grow. All this He saw and anticipated 
 from the start. In the Gospel He preached He saw 
 the age of gold. In the liberty He proclaimed He 
 saw the emancipation of the race. In the ideals which 
 He unfolded He saw the regenerating forces at the 
 roots of humanity. In His principles He saw em- 
 pires. In the love which He brought to earth He 
 saw a new civilization. In His own personality He 
 saw an absolute and universal reign. The twenty 
 centuries since Christ have revealed the Master as the 
 one universal personage of the race. Christ is a 
 civilization. He is a civilization that has not yet 
 climaxed in the world. 
 
 Science sets for itself the problem of drilling a 
 mountain, and we have a feat of engineering. It is 
 a triumph. Two companies start on opposite sides of 
 the mountain and meet within, in the center, and pick 
 strikes pick, and drill strikes drill, so accurately is the 
 problem worked out. We want certitude like that in 
 religion or else silence. 
 
 PRAYERS. 
 
 Lord teach us the dignity of the human soul. 
 Give us a sight of life's value. Put to us the startling 
 question: " What will it profit a man? etc." 
 
 Give us to see the rainbow of hope on the black 
 cloud of life's sorrow. 
 
56 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Brighten, deepen, hallow, refresh, cleanse us, and 
 purify our sins. 
 
 Remember and bless those who mourn. 
 
 Give us courage in reserve. May our courage rise 
 with the conflict. 
 
 We thank Thee for the Bells of Easter Morning. 
 
 We thank Thee for Love, for its duties, which are 
 privileges; for its visions, which are inspiring; for its 
 pleasures, which are the bonds of fellowship. 
 
 We come before the throne of Thy Grace with 
 Thanksgiving. 
 
 On the walls of every home may there be inscribed 
 the words of the Master. 
 
 May God watch over the cradle. 
 
 Help the sons and daughters of the home to re- 
 member their father's God. May it be a joy that 
 their father has a God. 
 
 We pray for illumination. 
 
 Kindle a light that shall call them to a new and 
 better life. 
 
 Keep us faithful and steadfast in the commonplace 
 duties of every day. Make us practical. Give us 
 common sense. 
 
 When bowed down with weariness of soul and las- 
 situde of body quicken us by Thy Good Spirit. 
 
 Take away from us all vain regrets. May we find 
 our solace in efforts to do better. 
 
EBLIGION 57 
 
 Be a help to us when the thing that is bitter befalls 
 us. Be a real friend. Be a light in darkness. Be 
 our stay in life's defeats, betrayals, disillusions. Put 
 heart into us. 
 
 Help us to forget all that it is best should be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Grant that we may be educated in our responsibili- 
 ties. Deliver us from pet aversions. Make us real- 
 ize that we are capable of being divinely possessed. 
 
 We thank Thee for the hiss of the world at the 
 corruptions and neglects and failures and sins of the 
 Church. Make it a messenger of God to awaken the 
 Church to conscience, to self-shame, to repentance, to 
 repudiation of evil, to reformation, and to a new and 
 spotless life against which there is no condemnation. 
 Lord, help the world to hiss whenever that is the 
 divine order of the day. 
 
 O God, Our God: Thou clothest Thyself with 
 light as with a garment. Thou art our Ideal of Pu- 
 rity, from whence cometh holy laws, purifying prin- 
 ciples and inspiring purposes, and thoughts and reso- 
 lutions, that sanctify and beautify and make perfect 
 in holiness our immortal souls. 
 
 Let the influence of precious memories sanctify us 
 this day. The grand end of a Christian sanctuary 
 and its ordinances is that the worshipper may be 
 
58 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 trained to inward holiness: to assimilate the splendors 
 of the divine nature ; and to make Godlike this life. 
 
 Impart stimulus to my genius; let others with 
 larger minds and finer ideals and greater enthusiasms 
 live in and through me and give me a transfiguration. 
 
 We thank Thee for our soul-friends. 
 
 ^ -P ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Save us from irreligious solicitude for God. 
 
 Help us to avoid the men and women who have 
 great skill in making trouble. Help the Church to 
 isolate them and thus render them harmless. 
 
 God, I thank Thee that love is in the world. I 
 thank Thee for what it brings into life, and for what 
 it makes out of life. I thank Thee that it is eternal. 
 It has a glorious future. It makes lovers ; and lovers 
 make heaven. 
 
 We thank Thee for the Old Testament— that the 
 religious action of Judaism has been colossal. 
 
 ^ ^c I}: :}: :{: :i: 
 
 Kindle within me, by Thy truth, a cleansing fire of 
 shame and a longing that shall search through and 
 through my manhood, and my purposes of life. 
 Grant that while I live I may live mightily. 
 
EELIGION 59 
 
 Save me from half truths. 
 
 Grant us a new sense of the body as the Holy 
 Temple of God, as God's Holy Temple. Let me not 
 lose my chastity of mind. Preserve to me my chas- 
 tity of mind, I beseech Thee. 
 
 Remember those whose enthusiasm is chilled and 
 give them back the joys and delights of their early 
 and first love. If we have any heresies, may they be 
 healthful and health-giving heresies. Grant us the 
 maximum of efficiency. 
 
 5|: 5ic H= 5j: ^ ^ 
 
 Pity those who are sitting on their tombstones. 
 
 Spirits have passed from us whose example was 
 inspirational: whose companionship was heartening: 
 and whose services seemed indispensable. Lord send 
 us their successors: send Joshua to lead in the place 
 of Moses: send Elisha to take up the fallen mantle of 
 Elijah. 
 
 :}: ^ 31? :j; ^ :!: 
 
 Our Father, we thank Thee for Thine unspeakable 
 gift, even Jesus Christ our Lord and Master. We 
 thank Thee for the life which He lived, the example 
 which He set, the words which He spoke, the songs 
 which He sang, the personality which He exercised, 
 and the prayers which He offered. Through Him 
 Thou hast revealed Thyself as the God of Love. We 
 thank Thee for this hour in Thy sanctuary. It has 
 been to us an hour of privilege and revelation, and 
 
60 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCB 
 
 holy fellowship with the Master. We have felt anew 
 His interest in mankind. We thank Thee for His 
 prayer for us, which we have studied together. His 
 prayer has in it the glory of an inspiring promise and 
 the beauty of a great hope, and the thrill of a splendid 
 vision. May His great expectations relative to us 
 govern us, and mold our lives. We pray for power 
 to believe in the great fact which the prayer of the 
 Master teaches us — that God keeps constant watch 
 over His own, and that under the rule of His provi- 
 dential hand all things work together for good for 
 them who love God and are called according to His 
 purpose. Trials and suffering are disciplinary: they 
 are the furnace in which the fine gold is purified, 
 purged of dross and refined to the seventh refining. 
 We pray for oneness with the will of God: for self- 
 mastery: and for the enthronement of the right in all 
 of our faculties, and for the sanctification of the 
 whole man. We pray for white robes to be worn 
 here now during our walk with God on earth. May 
 the whole of our life be a stepping-heavenward. 
 Make and keep us men and women of the Ten Com- 
 mandments: and of the Eight Beatitudes. Sanctify 
 us through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. May our 
 life be one series of triumphs — victory following vic- 
 tory — until our last foe be overcome and we shall be 
 enabled to shout, " O Death, where is thy sting ? 
 O Grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto 
 God who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." Hear us in this our prayer, and all the 
 glory shall be Thine, forever and forever. Amen. 
 
 We thank Thee for the songs of praise which Thou 
 
EELIGION 61 
 
 hast given us for hope, and confidence, and joy, and 
 uplift, and courage, and inspiration; help us to live 
 by them and by them sing ourselves through all the 
 dark valleys of life as our fathers have done before 
 us. Fill us with a noble discontent. May we thrill 
 responsively to God and the things of God. In the 
 pursuit of the good, grant us fixity of purpose. 
 
 We pray for Thy benediction upon all the forces 
 and agencies that make for the Christianizing of 
 Christendom, and for the revival and purification of 
 the Kingdom of God on earth. Give us sympathetic 
 imagination. Endow us with intuitive knowledge. 
 Give us the power of admiration, love for the noblest, 
 tender pity for the weak and erring. 
 
 Help us to take part in the prayers that rise here in 
 Thy Holy Temple: and help us also to join in the 
 praises of God which are sung here. Make Thy 
 Temple a place of large communion not only with 
 God, but also with the people of God. May the hour 
 of worship be an uplift to us all: an hour of new life: 
 of new association, and of new joy in the Lord. May 
 our experience here to-day be such that with Thy 
 servant of old we may be enabled to cry, " This is the 
 'House of God: this the gate of heaven." 
 
 O God, give me a religion that is proof against the 
 sadness of mortality; a religion that conquers the fear 
 of death; that wins a victory over death itself; that 
 grasps man's immortality and makes it a real govern- 
 ing fact; a power; an inspiration; a personal force; 
 that can overcome the pain of losing from the earth 
 
62 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 those whom we love. " The Lord hath commanded 
 the blessing, even life forevermore." 
 
 ^ -^ t- ^ * ^ 
 
 We pray for those in whom there is no manifest 
 disposition to acknowledge the divine claims ; but who 
 are living on the divine bounty ; for " God giveth to 
 all men liberally and upbraideth not." 
 
 ^ ^ ^ 5jc 5{; ^ 
 
 Let our joy of heart be in that which Thou ap- 
 provest. We thank Thee for the deep workings of 
 Thy purposes which keep so much in store for the 
 days to come. 
 
 We thank Thee for the joys and opportunities of 
 the Holy Sabbath. 
 
 Make us upright in our dealings with our fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Soften the hard man's heart. 
 
 Give new life to those who are soul-weary. 
 
 Help us to believe in our better selves. 
 
 Give us that joy that is protective and that is re- 
 creative. 
 
 Keep us from the taint of sin, and from the unrest 
 of distrust. 
 
 Give us the faculty of contemplation. 
 
 Help us to look upon this church as a royal be- 
 queathment, and a sacred trust ; the success of its past 
 is a stimulus. 
 
 Keep us keyed up to great expectations and antici- 
 pations. May our hearts fully respond to Thy seek- 
 ing love. Take out of our lives everything that comes 
 between Thee and us. May Thy life stir the sources 
 of life in us, so shine upon us that we may reflect 
 
EELIGION 63 
 
 something of Thy glory. May we aspire to the full 
 rejoicing of our sonship. Grant us to realize the 
 privilege of living, and the sacred truths of health 
 and time. We suffer by anticipation. Keep us from 
 this. 
 
 Keep us ever in the condition of inquiry. O Great 
 Keeper of the destinies of men, send us the blessed 
 assurance that man's end is not death, but life ever- 
 lasting; not defeat, but glorious victory. 
 
 :|: ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 We pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit that we 
 may be endued with power from on high; that we 
 may be intensified as men and women of God; and 
 helped to live luminous and attractive lives among 
 men. Help us to look upon success as a duty. 
 
 Help us to trust in the midst of the mysteries that 
 fill our life. These mysteries, which perplex man- 
 kind, the mysteries of life and the mysteries of death, 
 are Thy purposes and serve some grand end, for 
 Thou art the Lord of life and Thou art the Lord of 
 death. 
 
 Our Father, we have come to Thy house this morn- 
 ing to meet the Master, to see Him face to face, to 
 feel the charm of His personality, and to thrill anew 
 in response to His life-giving words. We thank Thee 
 for His prayer of intercession from which we have 
 read. Guide us as we ponder this prayer together 
 and while we gather from it the ideals which He 
 brought from heaven to earth. May we remembei; 
 
64 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 that the ideals of Jesus Christ are the working forces 
 of humanity. 
 
 Our Father, we thank Thee for this church of Thy 
 planting; and for the season of success which Thou 
 art granting it. We thank Thee for the fruitful la- 
 bors of the pastor, and for the uplifting power which 
 his character is in this community. May the Chris- 
 tian men and women here associated in his church be 
 a holy band whose hearts the Lord hath touched. 
 Give light to those who are in darkness and breathe 
 hope into those who are disheartened and downcast, 
 and comfort those who mourn. Over every new- 
 made grave do Thou inscribe the consolation of di- 
 vine grace contained in the Beatitudes uttered by the 
 Master, " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." 
 
 Lord, teach us to pray, and in prayer how to spe- 
 cialize. Thou hast made abundant provision for all 
 of our needs. The promises cover all contingencies. 
 May we build our prayers out of the promises. Give 
 us the things that persuade the soul to pray. 
 
 H; H: * * * * 
 
 Assist us in the service of praise. Help us to sing 
 the songs of the soul which the ages have given us in 
 a way that our faith and hope and love may reach a 
 white heat and so that our Christian life among men 
 may glow with the beauty of the Lord. We would 
 be made intense souls. 
 
 Bless us in the enjoyment of the communion of the 
 saints. Make us men and women of right affinities. 
 Keep us in touch with great and holy personalities 
 
EELIGION 65 
 
 that they may educate us in our privileges and possi- 
 bihties and be a conscience to us, and set before us 
 uplifting ideals, and be to us an added life. Save us, 
 O God, from arrested development. Educate us in 
 our admirations, — our admirations are our equipment 
 for life. May we learn from our experience that to 
 love and admire and fellowship with a pure and beau- 
 tiful soul is a religion in itself. Its holy messages 
 may beget in us holy purposes which shall fruit in 
 a holy life. Give us faith to turn the grand promises 
 of the covenant into burning desires and fervent peti- 
 tions, so that through prayer there may be realized to 
 us the words of the Master, " Blessed are they who 
 do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they 
 shall be filled." Make us men and women of the 
 Eight Beatitudes and of the Ten Commandments, and 
 of the innumerable promises. Lord, we thank Thee 
 for the golden age that beckons us on. Give more 
 and more of the vision splendid that we may go on 
 exhilarated and filled with a fresh passion for the 
 cause of God. We thank Thee that the truth is ever- 
 more annexing men through love to the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. 
 
 ^ :}: :J; ^ ^ ^ 
 
 May our troubles in life be purifying troubles. 
 
 5}: ^: ^ ^ ^ Jj: 
 
 We thank Thee for this day which bears the name 
 of the Lord, " The Lord's Day," this day which is the 
 monument and memorial of the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ from the dead. It is a day glorious with the 
 faith of centuries, eloquent with holy associations, the 
 day of the communion of the saints. 
 
 * * * ?K * * 
 
66 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 May those who enter Thy house leave their burden 
 behind, and take away the song. May they reach 
 here that faith that casts out fear, that hope that de- 
 fies despair, and that love that knoweth the deep 
 things of God. 
 
 Our Father, correct our mistakes, open the eyes of 
 our understanding, renew our faith, rekindle our 
 hope. May the Master give us of His genius, fill us 
 with His ideals, and make us new creatures. Grant 
 us absolute surrender of soul and body to God. Make 
 us great souls. Enable us to build up Godlike per- 
 sonalities, grant unto us glorious transfigurations. 
 Make us partakers of the divine nature. Make us 
 incarnations of God's thoughts. 
 
 :Jc ^ :[: ^ 3{; :|: 
 
 Comfort those who are growing old and to whom 
 age brings regrets and humiliations. Make hope take 
 the place of sorrow. Living or dying Thou art our 
 hope. 
 
 Our Father, we thank Thee for the friendships and 
 the fellowships of life. Bless us in the enjoyment of 
 these to-day. Bless the food of which we are about 
 to partake; may we derive strength from it for our 
 duties, and may it be to us an added life. We ask 
 these thines in the name of the Master. Amen. 
 
 'b- 
 
 Grant that we may be educated in our responsibili- 
 ties. Love us forgivingly. Deliver us from a culpa- 
 ble silence. Give us the catholic and open mind. 
 Save us from bigotry and narrowness. Give us self- 
 
EELIGION 67 
 
 knowledge. Grant us to dwell on the Mount of Beati- 
 tudes. Give us the grace of meditation; the gift of 
 discrimination; and the ability to choose. We pray 
 for visions; for the sensitive conscience; for love of 
 the good and great, and a white heat. Help us to 
 learn from human experience. We thank Thee for 
 the golden age that beckons us on. Give us invincible 
 fineness of soul ; right affinities ; luminous lives. Help 
 us to deal with things that count; and give place and 
 welcome to the holiest emotions, that we may be 
 raised to a higher plane of life. 
 
 ****** 
 
 We pray for enthusiasm in the things of God, and 
 for freshness of feelings. We pray for pure sancti- 
 ties, heavenly affinities, holy associations. Save us 
 from arrested development. Teach us, when need 
 is, how to efface ourselves. Fulfill in us and through 
 us the splendid promises of Thy Word. Give us to 
 see the rainbow on every cloud of sorrow. Keep us 
 on the active list. Keep us in constant touch with 
 great personalities. We pray for illumination. Make 
 us charitable. Give us common sense. Give us a 
 grand objective in life. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Thine, O God, is the day, and Thine is the house, 
 and Thine is the Book, and Thine are the people. 
 Bless Thy day. Thy house, Thy Book, Thy people. 
 Be here in our midst and breathe peace upon us. Give 
 us clean hands that we may acceptably take the holy 
 things of our religion, and give us pure hearts that we 
 may see God. These things we ask in the name of 
 the Master who taught us to pray " Our Father," 
 
68 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 Master, in giving our gifts, enable us to pattern 
 after Thee; first of all may we give ourselves. May 
 we give in such a spirit that our gifts shall express 
 our love to Thee, and our faith in Thy cause. We 
 put our offerings into the hands of the Lord, and ask 
 Him to consecrate them to holy service. 
 
 ;K * * :(: ^ :): 
 
 We thank Thee for those who have been made 
 eminent by death. Their graves are influential 
 
 Our Father, we come to Thy house to be heart- 
 ened, and refreshed, and remade. We are seeking 
 our best selves. We covet earnestly the best moods, 
 the moods out of which grow great resolves, and 
 great purposes, and great enterprises. Grant us these 
 moods with the optimism, and the freshness of feel- 
 ing, and the self-assurance which they bring. While 
 we are in these moods do Thou lead us to make our 
 choices for life, and form our plans, and determine 
 our gifts, and consecrate ourselves anew to the serv- 
 ices of God and of humanity. Give us great objec- 
 tives in life. We pray to-day that we may be renewed 
 in the whole man. We ask for the open and receptive 
 mind that we may welcome all known truth. We ask 
 for the pure heart that we may be able to perceive the 
 things of God. We ask Thee for the quickened con- 
 science that we may be sensitive to good and evil. 
 Bless every part of this service. May the presence of 
 the Holy Spirit make this Sabbath a Pentecost full of 
 the bestowal of Christian gifts and graces. May 
 these gifts and graces help us to touch life to finer 
 issues, and to fulfill our mission as witnesses for God. 
 
EELIGION 69 
 
 Guide us as we enjoy the privileges of the sanctuary. 
 Give us a reverent and beHeving spirit when we read 
 the divine Book so that its holy messages may beget in 
 us holy purposes which shall fruit in a holy life. 
 Sanctify us through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. 
 
 Save us from a half life. May our whole life be a 
 stepping heavenward. Help us to specialize Thee. 
 Fertilize our beliefs. Give us to enjoy the liberty of 
 the Sons of God. 
 
 O God, Thou hast but one Son; but Him Thou 
 hast made a Minister. In His name, we ask Thee to 
 make the ministers who preach His Gospel both effi- 
 cient and sufficient in their divine calling. O God, 
 baptize the churches with the spirit of peace for the 
 schools of the Prophets. 
 
 We thank Thee for the men and women of Jesus 
 Christ who are the glory and strength of the Church. 
 They study large maps. They undertake great enter- 
 prises. They live converting and convincing lives. 
 Such men' and women are more than men and women. 
 They are epochs, they are the golden age. The touch 
 divine of such natures tones us up, — assimilates us. 
 They are an added life to us. Lord, we want in our 
 Church and in our nation such public souls. 
 
 May we fall in love with love. When we are in- 
 clined to think that our sorrows are hopeless sorrows, 
 at that moment may we hear the voice of the Master 
 
70 A BOOK OP EEMEMBRANCE 
 
 saying, " Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden and I will give you rest." 
 
 Oh, help us to sing all through life! To sing for 
 relief; to sing for joy; to sing for the edification, in- 
 spiration and comfort of others. Sing even though 
 the voice breaks, and the tears pour down our cheeks, 
 sing and cry at the same time. 
 
 Remember our children who have reached the age 
 of purpose. Give them special guidance. Give them, 
 in forming friends, companions full of experience 
 and wisdom. 
 
 A prayer of John Pulsford: "O Jesus, my eternal 
 Mercy, forgive me: O Jesus, my eternal Holiness, 
 sanctify me: O Jesus, my eternal Life, renew me: 
 O Jesus, my eternal Beauty, clothe me: O Jesus, 
 my eternal Youth, flourish within me and upon me. 
 Amen." 
 
 May they be a band whose heart the Lord hath 
 touched. May they give God good reason for bless- 
 ing them. But Thou, O God, dost need no compul- 
 sion. Thou art more ready to give than Thy people 
 are ready to receive. May they do God's work in 
 God's way. May this church be filled with the Holy 
 Spirit and power. We thank Thee for Thy honored 
 servants who have labored here, who have been lead- 
 ers indeed. Who taught professors of Christianity 
 how to live the Christian life, and how to die the 
 Christian death. This is a place of holy associations, 
 
RELIGION 71 
 
 and of blessed memories, a place to think of those 
 who have gone before, and to whom death is gain. 
 When the chariot swings low, may we be found ready 
 to ride on high to rejoin them in the Celestial City. 
 Grant that the Holy Spirit may be here to do His 
 ofhce. His work of consolation, and of continuing the 
 presence of Christ, and His life. May He illuminate 
 the pages of the sacred book, and apply the preached 
 word, and through the transfiguration of the people 
 make it attractive. May He take the things of Christ 
 and show them unto us, and in the hour of prayer 
 may He make intercessions within us beyond the 
 power of utterance. May the Holy Spirit glorify 
 Christ in our midst to-day that there may be a new 
 outgoing of our hearts to the Master and a new coro- 
 nation of Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 
 Make us sons and daughters of the Highest, aflame 
 with enthusiasm, and full of optimism relative to the 
 Kingdom of God on earth. With us may optimism 
 be translated into power and service. We thank Thee 
 for the love of friends who have gone to the com- 
 munion that encircles the Eternal Christ, and to 
 whom death is gain. 
 
 Our Father, we thank Thee for all Thy gifts. 
 Grant us Thy blessing with them. While we now 
 feast our bodies with these bounties of Thy grace, 
 grant that we may feast our souls upon the Bread of 
 Life, upon the blessed memories that console and 
 upon the promises that pertain to the life eternal. 
 We offer our prayer in the name of the Master. 
 Amen. 
 
72 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 GOD'S LOGIC. 
 
 In the reputed life and sayings of Jesus of Naza- 
 reth we have the most perfect philosophy of life yet 
 presented to the mind of man. Whatever is true be- 
 longs to Christian teaching. 
 
 Ideas, whether incorporated in myths or in dogmas, 
 or in rites, or in institutions, are ideas. Ideas refine, 
 develop, control, construct, inspire, fascinate. 
 
 The whole of creation is but an instantaneous 
 thought of God. 
 
 THE HUMAN WILL. 
 
 The will should receive a careful training. Great 
 souls have great wills; feeble souls have only wishes. 
 
 Life is transfigured in and by and through a grand 
 purpose. It was when Moses and Elijah on the 
 Mount talked with Jesus about His great purpose 
 which brought Him to earth, — " the decease He was 
 about to accomplish at Jerusalem," — that He was 
 transfigured, and His face did shine as the sun and 
 His raiment was white as the light. 
 
 The determining power of the soul is the will. 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is the Gospel in a sacrament. 
 We have the Gospel in many forms — The Gospel in 
 song — The Gospel in a Life — The Gospel in a prayer 
 — The Gospel in a symbol — The Gospel in a picture. 
 On Christ's part the Lord's Supper is an offer of 
 Himself to us. " Take," He says. On our part, what 
 is it? It expresses our allegiance to Him. Chris- 
 
EBLIGION 73 
 
 tians, we must give Christ the place He claims at His 
 sacrament. We must take Him as our Lord and 
 Life. Ralph Waldo Emerson resigned his pastorate 
 because he could not enter into this sacrament. He 
 had a clear vision. He saw what the sacrament was 
 and meant, — the claims it made for Christ. Christ 
 sits at the head of the table. We nourish our life 
 out of His. To Emerson the Lord's Supper was a 
 witness to Christ's deity. We say to Him when we 
 celebrate it, " Thou art the Son of the Living God." 
 He says, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Fa- 
 ther." There is a lessening sense of responsibilities 
 in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and narrow- 
 ing of its interpretation. Seek the true restoration 
 of the sacrament. Let there be no impoverishment 
 of the death of Christ. 
 
 You may have a great deal of religion and be very 
 miserable with it. You may be a Christian and never 
 come to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, i. e., share 
 in the joy of the Lord. 
 
 While our bodies worship by using these sacra- 
 mental elements, may our souls worship by the exer- 
 cise of a sacramental faith. 
 
 The Lord's Supper comes to us with its Gospel for 
 the senses as well as for the soul. Its symbols speak 
 in all languages. This sacrament reconstructs for us 
 the final teaching of the Master. Here Jesus speaks 
 to us in symbols wider than language itself. The 
 master-thought of Jesus lives here. 
 
 What is communion with God? Church services 
 mean communion, A walk in nature means com- 
 
74 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 munion. The inner chamber, the place of prayer, 
 means communion. We commune with God when 
 we read the self-contained chapters of the Book. 
 They are the Holy of Holies. For example, the sev- 
 enteenth chapter of the Gospel of John lets us into the 
 very core of the inner life of Christ. 
 
 When the sacraments of the New Testament are 
 set forth in their native glory and are used according 
 to their original purpose, they are mighty spiritual 
 powers in the realm of the Christian religion. In 
 gathering the sacramental material which we seek for 
 our enrichment, we shall be brought into touch and 
 fellowship with the sacramental hosts of God's elect. 
 This surely is a high prospect. It should prove elec- 
 tric and inspirational. What the sacraments' have 
 been to the foremost of God's people they may be to 
 us. The right use of sacramental things will make us 
 sacramental persons. There is no goal on this earth 
 beyond this. 
 
 The fact is the Lord's Supper sets forth the essen- 
 tials of our faith as no words could; and certainly 
 implies the presence of Christ in a very real and spiri- 
 tual way. The Mass in the Roman Church will al- 
 ways be its strongest weapon because it contains a 
 kernel of the living truth. 
 
 The Lord's Supper was His institution at the mo- 
 ment when His divine consciousness was at its clear- 
 est, and His love to mankind was at full tide. Ah, 
 this is holy ground ! 
 
 Remember Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the 
 Lord's Supper and the glory of the sacramental cup. 
 
EBLIGION 75 
 
 He took the brush and blotted it out. It was the 
 Christ he wanted to shine and attract and be admired. 
 
 The sacramental sense must be fostered in us. 
 
 The celebration of the Lord's Supper gives us an- 
 other opportunity to vocalize our faith in the Master, 
 and to express our love. Faith and love grow by ex- 
 pression, and are made influential and working forces 
 in humanity. 
 
 May the spirit of Jesus Christ be the rule of our 
 life. Turn every meal into a Lord's Supper. Glorify 
 God in eating and drinking. May the Holy Spirit 
 be here to give value and meaning to this communion 
 service. It is the spirit of a man that gives character 
 to what he does. 
 
 The Lord's Supper secures a combination testi- 
 mony. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is a fine piece of narrative 
 work, a veritable thrill. There is more room in 
 Christ's great heart than man can fill; hence His un- 
 limited invitation on every sacramental occasion, 
 " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden and I will give you rest." 
 
 The sacred record which gives the story of the in- 
 stitution of the Lord's Supper tells us that on the 
 night in which He was betrayed Jesus took bread, 
 brake and blessed it, set it apart from a common to a 
 sacramental use, and gave it to His disciples, saying, 
 " This bread is my body, broken for you ; take, eat, 
 and this do in remembrance of me." Further on the 
 sacred record reads, "And after they had partaken of 
 
76 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 the bread, the Master took the cup also and gave it to 
 His disciples," explaining its meaning in these words, 
 " This cup is the New Testament in my blood shed 
 for many for the remission of sins. Take ye, drink 
 ye, drink ye all of it." With these words of the 
 Master explanatory of this holy ordinance before us 
 the question which we ask ourselves at this time is 
 this: " What is the meaning of the celebration of the 
 Lord's Supper ? " Paul, the chief of the apostles, 
 joins here and helps us in our search for the right 
 answer to the question " What is the meaning of the 
 celebration of the Lord's Supper ? " In his Epistle to 
 the Christian Church at Corinth in which he rein- 
 states the Lord's Supper and explains anew its pur- 
 port and meaning, he writes, "As often as ye eat of 
 this bread or drink of this cup ye do show " — de- 
 clare — " the Lord's death till He come." This is the 
 meaning of the celebration of the Lord's Supper: 
 " Ye do declare the Lord's death." 
 
 The celebration of the Lord's Supper italicizes the 
 cross of Jesus Christ. The celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper lifts up before the world the crucified Christ 
 as the Saviour of mankind. The celebration of the 
 Lord's Supper is the Church preaching the gospel of 
 salvation to the lost by means of and by the use of 
 sacramental acts and symbols. The celebration of 
 the Lord's Supper is the sacramental host of God's 
 elect crying in the hearing of the universe, " Hosanna 
 to the Son of David : Blessed is He that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest ! " When 
 God calls us to celebrate the Lord's Supper, He calls 
 us to render a grand service, a grand service to the 
 memory of His beloved Son; a grand service in the 
 
EELIGION 77 
 
 salvation of the human race. In receiving this sacra- 
 mental bread remember the words of the Master, 
 " This is my body, broken for you; take, eat, this do 
 in remembrance of me." 
 
 The Lord's Supper comes to us vi'ith its gospel for 
 the senses as well as for the soul. Its symbols speak 
 in all languages. This sacrament reconstructs for us 
 the final teachings of the Saviour. Here Jesus speaks 
 to us in symbols wider than language itself. The 
 master thought of Jesus lies here. 
 
 The sacramental room is the inner sanctuary of 
 love. 
 
 Give us deep insight as we deal with the acted par- 
 able of the Lord's Supper, — its responsive acts, on the 
 Master's part, and on our part. 
 
 " Ye do show, i. e., declare the Lord's death till He 
 come," says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 11: 26). 
 
 Its celebration, therefore, is the great congregation 
 shouting in the hearing of the world, " Hosanna to 
 the Son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest ! " The 
 Master declares His cross as the atonement for our 
 sins; and Himself as the Bread of Life to our souls. 
 He says, " I give." We say, " I take." 
 
 The Master made His death a first rank truth by 
 italicizing it in the Lord's Supper. 
 
 These sacramental days are rich and gracious days. 
 Our souls feed on the memory of them. They are 
 full of holy impressions; great thoughts; and unutter- 
 able expectations. Feast the soul on Him who is the 
 
78 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely. 
 He is the positive magnet of the ages. We are en- 
 tranced with His vision. 
 
 The Lord's Supper has the power to enlarge Chris- 
 tian fellowship, inspire visions, comfort, endear the 
 Master, renew the memory, exhibit the cardinals of 
 the Gospel, call into exercise all of the Christian 
 graces, tone us up. It is a symbolic ordinance. It 
 helps us to visuaHze Him. The cup stands for Cal- 
 vary to fellowship us with the great of all ages. The 
 great facts which we see here are like the jewels 
 which the artist keeps on his easel to tone up his sense 
 of color. Let Christ live in you. He fixed His own 
 view of death immemorably by this rite. 
 
 This table is set for two parties. It refreshes 
 Christ. We should ever keep our faculties open 
 Godward. The Lord's Supper is the ordinance of 
 the continuance of fellowship. 
 
 It is a memorial, it is a challenge, it is a safeguard, 
 it is the Lord's own institution and bears His name. 
 The Lord's Supper is not an anti-climax: it is a cli- 
 max. Its teachings are in focus with the great doc- 
 trines of the Gospel. It is none other than an 
 epitome of these doctrines. 
 
 Live amid the influences of a set of holy stimuli, — 
 these will arouse you. The Lord's Supper can place 
 you in the midst of these. 
 
 The celebration of the Lord's Supper proclaims 
 that you realize that the dead on the cross was and is 
 no dead thing. Its meaning and power, by the cele- 
 bration of this ordinance, live afresh in your midst. 
 
EELIGION 79 
 
 Its celebration is not only the utterance of a " Ho- 
 sanna to the Son of David! " but is a repetition of His 
 triumphant shout on the cross, " It is finished ! " It 
 is a memorial of the fact that everything requisite for 
 our redemption is complete and effective and that our 
 salvation through Christ is perfect. 
 
 May we all feel the spell of His presence. We join 
 hands across the centuries with those who have hon- 
 ored Him in this ordinance. 
 
 The Lord's Supper has a reason for being. It 
 helps to visualize Christ. Its meanings have kept it 
 alive. 
 
 Christ is a self-communicating personality to be 
 laid hold of and appropriated. What says He here in 
 the unchangeable language of symbols? Let Christ 
 live in you. Paul did, John did. 
 
 Every ordinance has its distinct message. Is the 
 sacrament private property? 
 
 May Jesus be transfigured in the sacramental room 
 always. The sacramental room should be inspira- 
 tional. The Lord's Supper is the Master's yearning. 
 
 The object of this service is to give the sacramental 
 life more meaning. If Christ dwell in you let Him 
 do some of the hard things in your life. These are 
 the steps: — to begin with, it is I and not Christ, then 
 it is Christ and I, then finally it is Christ and not I. 
 
 The seventh chapter of Romans is a chapter of 
 " I." You have " I " twenty times. Let no man try 
 to live it over again. It is not a chapter to reproduce. 
 
80 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Move on into the eighth chapter of Romans, which 
 is a chapter of Christ; and hence is a chapter of the 
 higher spiritual Hfe; the superlative life; the sacra- 
 mental life. The eighth chapter is the very antipodes 
 of the seventh. Instead of being a wail it is a con- 
 tinuous anthem beginning with no condemnation and 
 ending with no separation. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is the institutional utterance of 
 Christ's yearning for His own. Here Christ talks 
 out to us ; here we ought to talk out to Christ. It is a 
 day when we count our privileges. 
 
 The sacramental room is a splendid place in which 
 to give ourselves up to contemplation. The artist 
 spends weeks and months in the Louvre, Paris, in the 
 Pitti Palace, Florence, and in the art galleries of 
 Dresden studying the masterpieces of the masters of 
 the brush and palette both modern and ancient. They 
 worship these embodied ideals of beauty. They 
 breathe their air until their power and loveliness mold 
 their taste. That is part of their growth. It is their 
 enjoyment. Fine admirations are a fine equipment. 
 Pure hero-worship is a tonic. It is a holy stimula- 
 tion. 
 
 Legend says that Hypatia packed her pauses full of 
 feeling. The silence in the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper is full of feeling. 
 
 Give us while in the sacramental room the catholic 
 mind, save us from bigotry and narrowness. Give us 
 self-knowledge. Grant us to dwell on the Mount of 
 Beatitudes. Give us the grace of meditation, the gift 
 of discrimination; the ability to chooc . Give us 
 
EELIGION 81 
 
 sensitive consciences. Give us love at a white heat; 
 love for God and our fellowmen. Help us to learn 
 from human experiences. Help us to give place to 
 the noblest emotions that we may be raised to a higher 
 plane of life. Help us to capitalize the right, to 
 choose and cultivate right affinities, and to deal with 
 the things that count, and that exhilarate, and that 
 ennoble, and make for luminous lives, and invincible 
 fineness of soul. 
 
 We thank Thee that In the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper we can all speak and bear public testimony for 
 the Master, and by symbols and symbolic acts preach 
 His Gospel to mankind. 
 
 Remove the dying request of Jesus out of the 
 sphere of duty into the sphere of privilege and de- 
 light. The celebration of the Lord's Supper gives us 
 another opportunity to vocalize our faith in the Mas- 
 ter, and to express our love. It centers the thoughts 
 of our fellowmen on the Master. 
 
 The words of the Master must be repeated anew at 
 each celebration. This Is the way the Master speaks 
 to us. 
 
 What the Lord's Supper pledges! It pledges 
 Christ. We did not ask this. It pledges Him to re- 
 member us; to forgive us; to love us. We pledge 
 ourselves to loyalty. The celebration secures a com- 
 bination testimony. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is the Gospel In a sacrament. 
 We have the Gospel in many forms; the Gospel in a 
 song, the Gospel In a holy personality; the Gospel In 
 
82 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 a life; in a symbol; in a picture; in a prayer; in a 
 temple. 
 
 May the spirit of Jesus Christ rule our life and 
 may He repeat Himself in us and through us. May 
 we let the white light of the Master's character and 
 life shine upon us that we may be searched and re- 
 vealed and purified and transfigured. We thank 
 Thee for Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, 
 and the life. He is manhood full-orbed. He is our 
 better selves realized; our personalities revealed. He 
 is the revelation of the Father. " In Him dwelleth 
 all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Help us to 
 keep our faculties open Godward. Help us to live 
 the sacramental life. Oh, help this whole audience to 
 fall down in confession before Thee! May we take 
 away with us a whole gospel, and a whole communion 
 of the saints, and a whole Christ. Give us the grace 
 of appreciation and of appropriation. Give us the 
 things which persuade the soul to prayer. 
 
 Jesus Christ has the value of God to us. While 
 the sacramental cup is in our hand may the sacra- 
 mental song be in our heart. 
 
 When the sacraments of the New Testament are 
 set forth in their native glory, and are used according 
 to their original purpose, they are mighty spiritual 
 powers. What they have been to the foremost of 
 God's people. The right use of sacramental things 
 makes sacramental people. There is no goal beyond 
 this. 
 
 The sacramental stillness and holy hush is favor- 
 able to good listening. The silence of Sinai produces 
 
EELIGION 83 
 
 the Decalogues. The silence of Patmos, the Apoca- 
 lypse. 
 
 A whole theology is in the Lord's Supper. All the 
 great chapters in the Book are in it. 
 
 The Lord's Supper has had a wonderful career. 
 Full of Christophanies. 
 
 Simply be filled with the fullness of Christ and His 
 divine light, and He will transfigure you. 
 
 We are in search of the highest views. I am to 
 regard the ordinance as a means whereby I am to be 
 brought into a place of greater nearness to the Mas- 
 ter. 
 
 The sacramental moods are moods of expectancy, 
 moods of consecration, moods of faith, moods of joy. 
 
 A Prayer. Breathe into the sacred symbols the 
 breath of life. Make them tell anew and thrillingly 
 the story of the cross. May they interpret the Mas- 
 ter to us, and His great passion to serve. May they 
 talk to us of the fullness of His undying love, and 
 may our use of them inspire in us a larger faith, and 
 a more complete consecration to Him and His cause. 
 By a proper use of these sacramental symbols may we 
 unitedly preach the Gospel to the world, and declare 
 the Lord's saving death till He come. Help us to 
 idealize this ordinance of the Master's appointment, 
 and make it a New Testament to the world. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is the grand Hallelujah Chorus 
 of the holy ordinances of religion. 
 
 If Christ is not in the sacramental room He is no- 
 
84= A BOOK OF EBMBMBEANCE 
 
 where. He Is here in these symbols as really as He 
 is in the midst of the majesty of the right hand of 
 God in Heaven. 
 
 We give these sacramental things to God to be 
 used. We expect Him to use them as we expect to 
 use the Book, as the organ with its musical keys 
 which leads our praises. We bring out these cups 
 and plates and set apart this bread and this wine and 
 we expect Him to make them all sacramental. We 
 mean them to refresh both the Master and ourselves. 
 
 The sacramental hour is a time for large things, 
 large scriptures, large prayers, large thoughts, large 
 visions, large aspirations, large songs of praise. It is 
 a luminous hour. It transfigures time. It is the 
 hour of Pisgah-tops. 
 
 We come into His sacramental presence to know 
 ourselves, to see how much we are on the Lord's side, 
 to gauge our feelings Christward, to see how He 
 moves us, how we admire Him, to clear up our mis- 
 understandings. 
 
 The sacramental hour is the knock of God at the 
 door of your soul, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, 
 and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the 
 King of Glory may come in." 
 
 May we feel the spell of His presence. We join 
 hands across the centuries with the chosen few who 
 communed with the Master in the upper room. 
 
 The sacramental atmosphere is the spiritual at- 
 mosphere raised to a tropical temperature in which 
 our natures blossom and bear fruit. 
 
EELIGION 86 
 
 Give us the faculty of appreciation. The Lord's 
 Supper is a drama, not a word spoken, — only acts. 
 
 Leave room for the Master to speak. By the 
 Lord's Supper the name of Jesus has been kept alive. 
 
 May there be in us a sacramental response. May 
 it bind us to a new loyalty. 
 
 Appreciation is a sacramental grace. 
 
 The Lord's Supper in its unbroken celebration 
 shows that Jesus Christ has reached two thousand 
 years of life and power. This demonstrates that time 
 cannot destroy Him. He is to-day the mightiest 
 power in the world. 
 
 EVIDENCES FOR ETERNITY. 
 
 What is God's cosmic plan for us? There is His 
 power as in the story of creation working right along 
 through chaos and stopping not until a voice says, 
 "All is good." 
 
 God has thousands of bells of gold; and every bell 
 of His rings out the fact of succession. You hear 
 these bells of God ringing in nature, in the succession 
 of day and night, in the going and coming of the 
 seasons. You hear these bells ringing in history; 
 Aaron and then Eleazar; Elijah then Elisha; Bacon 
 then Newton ; the Pilgrim then the Puritan. 
 
 Speaking historically the belief in the reality of 
 the life everlasting supports itself in three ways: 
 1. From Instinct, 2. From Reason, 3. From Chris- 
 tian experience and insight, and there are thus three 
 ways of gaining victory over death. Historians of 
 
86 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 the religions of the world tell us that almost all people 
 believe in the reality of life after death. Egypt, for 
 example, is really a vast tomb. Pyramids, temples, 
 tombs line the banks of the Nile. For from five 
 thousand to ten thousand years they have spoken. 
 The song there has been: " Thanks be to God who 
 giveth us the victory through instinct." Socrates 
 faced death victoriously in the strength of reason. 
 He says death is either extinction or a migration to 
 another world, where are the good and great of all 
 ages; — a glorious communion. Reason is the ulti- 
 mate test of religion. 
 
 The results of science are the religion of humanity. 
 
 NATURE AND THE ETERNAL. 
 
 Nature is the book — the book of God. It reveals 
 God as everywhere present. Mungo Park, the 
 traveller, tells how he was heartened by the tiny plant 
 which he found growing in the desert. Filled with 
 courage he pushed on to a place of comfort. Was 
 Mungo Park a fool? No. But the man who says 
 there is no God ! is a fool. " There is a power not 
 ourselves that makes for righteousness " (Matthew 
 Arnold). All these forces of Nature are evidences 
 of Being. 
 
 Nature is a cabinet of good thoughts — good 
 thoughts are great thoughts and great thoughts make 
 great men. Are we weak? God is power. 
 
 Admire the landscape and adore the Creator of it 
 who has filled it with glory. While we saturate our- 
 selves with Beauty we bathe in the Infinite. 
 
EELIGION 87 
 
 We feel the thrill of life as we fellowship with the 
 flowers and fields and trees. All nature is alive with 
 the new life of spring. 
 
 Light as seen in the sunbeam is supreme in its 
 beauty; and even the sunbeam can be transfigured. 
 Run it through the prism and it becomes supreme 
 beauty multiplied sevenfold. Things can be trans- 
 figured. So can men and women be. 
 
 A glorious day of sunshine is a smile of God. 
 
 April breathes promises into the air. 
 June is the month of fulfilled glory. 
 
 To-morrow is a new day. A new day is a new 
 chance. What a divine invention a bright morning 
 is! It vows and challenges discomforted souls to 
 try again. What a piece of genius is night! With 
 sleep its great anaesthetic! It puts the senses to rest: 
 it renews: it recreates. 
 
 Help the farmer to cross over the rainbow-bridge 
 into the joys and the security of the harvest-cove- 
 nant. The farmers are partners with God — co-work- 
 ers in sustaining the world's life. 
 
 May his gun forever miss fire that would thin the 
 ranks of the singing birds. 
 
 Nature is full of the hues of the infinite. 
 
 What would happen if conformity should get hold 
 of Nature? The spirit of beauty is abroad this 
 month of June. Let us have the religion of June. 
 The bloom of the rose is natural piety. The lily 
 comes up in faith and love and hope. Every day is 
 
88 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 brimful of promise. Everything says: "Believe in 
 something good." " Believe in Him who inspires all 
 things." Everything is looking forward. 
 
 I find in beauty the wine of immortality. 
 
 Beauty shines in every rose that blooms; hence the 
 grandeur of the spring and summer. 
 
 Spring is the oldest of all sacraments. The spring 
 birds are voices clothed in feathers. Their voices are 
 keyed to prayer, and praise, and prophecy. 
 
 Science tells us that our continent now waving 
 with harvests from Maine to Oregon began its his- 
 tory on cold dead rock. 
 
 Nature in spring: — Every new leaf a psalm, every 
 flower a glory, every bird a chorister, every sight a 
 beauty, and every sound a bit of the music of heaven 
 strayed to earth. 
 
 Poets have humanized Nature. They have given 
 it a human voice, — Mother Earth. 
 
 The white lilies, and the red roses, and the blue- 
 bells, and the violets, and the golden jasmine, tell us 
 the secrets of the sunshine, an the glories wrapped 
 in the sunbeam. 
 
 Lord Kelvin says: " If a single atom were neg- 
 lected so that it dropped out of its place, the whole 
 universe would go crashing into ruins." God con- 
 trols atoms by the law of force. 
 
 The nebulse out of which worlds are being made 
 are the graves of dead worlds and the cradles of new 
 
EELIGION 89 
 
 worlds, immense masses of unorganized matter that 
 have been floating in space: the wreckage from col- 
 lisions of suns now ready to revert in the process of 
 time to their original condition, thus proving that in 
 nature nothing is lost. 
 
 SCIENCE AND THE SOUL. 
 
 Faraday once proved by experiment that gold was 
 among the slowest metals to sink. A percipitate of 
 gold he showed might take months to fall to the bot- 
 tom of a glass jar not more than five inches high. 
 The finer elements of faith and truth also require 
 time and steady thought if they are to sink down into 
 our being. 
 
 Truth is busy annexing new territory to the King- 
 dom of God. 
 
 The Christian does not look with dismay upon the 
 researches of science into Nature. He counts the 
 facts written on the rock-leaves beneath, and the 
 star-depths above, as the writing of God. It is writ- 
 ing that no man has been able to change or trifle with. 
 
 Put an electric flame back of a gas jet and throw 
 both upon a screen and the gas jet will cast a shadow. 
 All transfigurations are from the inside out. 
 
 'to'- 
 
 Agassiz asserted over and over and over that all 
 facts of geology and zoology exhibit thought and 
 prescience, and reveal a thinker, a person. 
 
 To the planets God gave Newton; to the bees 
 Huber; to the plants Linnaeus; to the birds Audu- 
 bon; to the slaves Phillips; to the savages Living- 
 stone. 
 
90 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Give us such faith that when the hour of death 
 comes to us we may be enabled to commit our soul to 
 God in victory, saying, " O death, where is thy 
 sting, O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be 
 unto God who giveth us the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 There are many notable and fruitful deaths. 
 
 Give us victory over the fear of death. 
 
 Enable us to enter upon the quiet anticipation of 
 death. 
 
 So many men sit on their tombstones. 
 
 Death is of nature and nature knows no evil. 
 
 Let the message of death to the believing heart be 
 life eternal. 
 
 Life grows gray in the absence of departed friends. 
 
 Grant that we may be respectful towards God when 
 dealing with death. The saint dies in the Lord just 
 as much as he lives in the Lord. 
 
 Death is not the bitterest of all experiences. 
 
 "Our people die well," said John Wesley. 
 
 The sunset of life means the sunrise of eternity. 
 
 Norway's midnight sun sets into sunrise. 
 
 Our despair at losing those whom we love springs 
 often from secret causes of self-love, and of coward- 
 
EBLIGION 91 
 
 ice in the presence of new duties wliich their absence 
 creates for us. 
 
 Nine days before his death Longfellow wrote: 
 
 " Out of the shadows of night. 
 The world rolls into light. 
 It is daybreak everywhere." 
 
 A friend dies and leaves us. Then what ? At first 
 a memory shrouded in despair. Then a living pres- 
 ence, a ministering spirit — answering doubts, 
 calming fears, stirring up noble aspirations, leading 
 us upwards step by step to faith and peace and hope. 
 
 The mystery of birth is the parallel of the mystery 
 of death. We relive the past life with those who 
 have gone. 
 
 l 
 
 In the presence of our beloved dead we need some- 
 thing more than a pessimist's philosophy. 
 
 Death is the door into a larger destiny. 
 
 When this world is through with us there is a place 
 ready for us. " Let not your heart be troubled." 
 
 The fear of age and of death is the shadow of life. 
 It is full of horror. The Greeks had it. 
 
 Death has never deceived any man. You can 
 count on dying. 
 
 What will be the drama played out upon my death- 
 bed? 
 
 It seemed as though my friend had everything to 
 live for. Surely God in taking him to Himself at 
 
92 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 this time of life must mean that his striking death 
 shall be a special service, for no man dieth to himself, 
 any more than any man liveth to himself. Our death 
 is as much of a service as our life is. 
 
 I can say this from my own experience. We men, 
 who sit at the feet of the Master, do not overlook 
 death in living our lives. No. Just as we practice 
 the presence of God, we practice the presence of 
 death. We do not put off death to the last moment. 
 We die in advance. We forecast death. We antici- 
 pate death. In thought I have died often; and have 
 closed my life with the words of the Master: " Fa- 
 ther, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." I have 
 died in advance; hence death cannot take me un- 
 awares. 
 
 PROPHETS. 
 
 The great prophets of the actual: Coleridge, 
 Wordsworth, Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, Ruskin, 
 Whittier. Victor Hugo is at his best in the descrip- 
 tion of the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 Isaiah: few writers have equalled his gift of ex- 
 pression and illustration. He argues by pictures and 
 convinces by his array of facts. He makes truth 
 glow with a new fire. He makes powerful and per- 
 suasive use of questions. His book is a masterpiece 
 of fascinating style. He has written some of the 
 greatest chapters of the Bible. He is a great in- 
 fluence in style. In literature he is among the im- 
 mortals. He was one of the kings of speech. 
 
 Ezekiel's " Quadruple Man " means progress, — 
 man, ox, lion, eagle. Master of thought, i. e., man; 
 
EELIGION 93 
 
 master of field, i. e., ox; master of the desert, i. e., 
 lion; master of the air, i. e., eagle. Nothing is for- 
 gotten. Not a string is wanting in his lyre. 
 
 Revelation comes through our experiences. Ex- 
 ample, " The Book of Job." " Isaiah 6." His vision 
 was everything to him. Hosea had experience with 
 his wife, a tragedy of bitter years. It makes his 
 book, his message to Israel. 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 What made Israel a peculiar people was their be- 
 lief that God is the ideal of human conduct and char- 
 acter. " Be ye holy for I am holy." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Israel's fruitful period intel- 
 lectually was not coincident with its dominance by 
 Csesar, but with its openness to foreign influence. In 
 the time of Moses, Israel was a composite people. 
 Canaan had stood near Babylonian influence for one 
 thousand years before the Hebrew conquest; and had 
 become saturated with Babylonian ideas. Into the 
 heritage Greece entered. Hebrew literature before 
 Christianity is not the product of pure Hebrew 
 genius, but of that genius fertilized by contact with 
 the civilization of the ancient- Orient. The period of 
 the prophets, the high-water mark of Hebrew litera- 
 ture, was the time of the Assyrian domination and of 
 Syrian and Egyptian alliances, when Israel was ex- 
 posed to the most varied foreign cultural influences. 
 The Babylonian captivity, when Israel was absent 
 from its land, was an era of intense literary activity. 
 
 The reaction against everything foreign began 
 then, too, and so far as it succeeded the nation be- 
 
94 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCB 
 
 came intellectually sterile. Instead of the various 
 messages of the prophets, we have such literary gems 
 as the seventh chapter of Numbers, the nine first 
 chapters of Chronicles, the dreary ritual formulas of 
 the priestly code, the post-exilic prophets, Haggai, 
 Zechariah, and Malachi, who lived in Palestine but 
 had no message, except " build the Temple and do 
 Temple service." The post-exilic historical books, 
 Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther show a pitiful lack of 
 historical insight and penetration in contrast with the 
 pre-exilic histories. 
 
 Not in the Holy Land, but in Egypt, where the 
 Jewish intellect was quickened by contact with Greek 
 philosophy did Jewish writers after the exile make 
 great contributions to the world. 
 
 PURITANISM. 
 
 The Puritans did not go back on beauty. They 
 went back on what beauty was made to serve. Art is 
 language. It came speaking the abominable doctrines 
 of oppression. The more beautiful it was, the more 
 dangerous it became. The Puritan lived in an age 
 where the Priest and the King had long been served 
 by art. I doubt if in Cromwell's day there was a 
 picture on the globe that had anything for the com- 
 mon people. The world's victories had all been 
 King's victories. Art was busy crowning monarchs, 
 or robing priests, or giving passions a garment of 
 light for mischief. Will any man point to a picture 
 of the wonderful numbers that Raphael painted or 
 designed that has in it a sympathy for the common 
 people? Those are all hierarchic or monarchic. 
 Michael Angelo was at heart a republican. He loved 
 the people's liberty and hated oppression. Yet what 
 
EBLIGION 95 
 
 single work of his records tliese sentiments? The 
 gentle Correggio filled church, convent, and cathedral 
 dome with wondrous riches of graceful forms: but 
 common life found no sign of love, no help, no cham- 
 pion in him. No, the rich man had artists, priests 
 had artists, but the common people had none. In 
 this prodigious wealth of picture, statue, canvas, and 
 fresco, I know nothing that served the common peo- 
 ple. What had the Puritan to thank art for? It 
 pled for the oppressor. It deified the hierarchy. It 
 clothed vice in radiant glory. Every cathedral was 
 to him a door to Rome. Every altar-piece was a 
 golden lie. When the Puritan broke the altar, it was 
 never the carving that he hated, but the idea carved. 
 
 The richest gift of Puritanism to the world of 
 literature is its gift of imagination. It gave us 
 "Paradise Lost," and "The Pilgrim's Progress." 
 Milton was eight years old when Shakespeare died. 
 He was born five years after the death of Queen 
 Elizabeth. He was the highest of Puritanism. He 
 inherited the best things of the Elizabethan age. He 
 was the flower of Puritanism. 
 
II 
 
 CHRISTIAN VIRTUES 
 FAITH. 
 
 THERE are many perplexed in faith and pure 
 in deed. 
 From believing in conscience you come to 
 believe in God. Believing in God, you chance one 
 day to recognize in the reported words of Jesus the 
 notes of Deity. " Never man spake as this man." 
 
 The virorkmen who began to build the cathedral of 
 Cologne, began away back in the thirteenth century. 
 They knew that they could not finish it. It took six 
 hundred years to do that. It was necessary that the 
 men of the thirteenth century should join hands with 
 the men of the fourteenth century; yet the men of 
 the thirteenth century were perfectly satisfied to quit 
 work when the day of their labor had reached its 
 evening. They knew that the work would go on, and 
 that the architect's ideal would stand before the world 
 as it does this day a Psalm of Praise in stone, a Hal- 
 lelujah Chorus in crystallized music. 
 
 Believe! believe in virtue, believe in truth, believe 
 in honesty, believe in God's law, believe in God. 
 
 We are constantly ringing the changes on the diffi- 
 culties of faith. The fact is it is harder not to be- 
 lieve than it is to believe. There are more difficulties 
 connected with non-faith. 
 
 96 
 
CHEISTIAN VIETUES 97 
 
 You are a fair specimen of a non-Christ man. 
 America is a Christ-made Republic. You have not 
 been built up independently of Jesus. You have been 
 Christianly fed, clothed, housed. It would take three 
 or four generations of out-and-out infidel living to 
 eliminate from you what Christianity has uncon- 
 sciously dune for you by means of the Christian at- 
 mosphere in which you have been reared. 
 
 Voltaire's religious opinions were almost exactly 
 those of the English Non-conformists of to-day. 
 
 There is an Iceland of negatives, and a Yosemite 
 Valley of positives. 
 
 May our life be a twenty-third Psalm. Cultivate 
 your desires, transfigure them, electrify them, illu- 
 minate them, vitalize them, eternalize them. 
 
 Faith and Reason are twin sisters. 
 
 Scientific faith casts out fear. 
 
 Things called for by the instincts o£ mankind; 
 these are religion. Religion calls for the ordering of 
 man's faculties. Place the inferior in subjugation to 
 the superior. 
 
 What is the religion of democracy? The Gospel 
 of efficiency. 
 
 I don't believe I could believe in anything I had to 
 believe. Faith made to order, — from that excuse me. 
 
 Faith gives a man leverage over circumstances. 
 
98 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 LOVE, 
 
 Bring fresh love into your life; it will keep your 
 life fresh. 
 
 Love celestializes man, his face and form and life. 
 It works a fineness into his very features. 
 
 Those we have loved are always glorious mem- 
 ories. 
 
 Emotion enriches life; to starve oneself emotion- 
 ally is a mistake. 
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 Sympathy, that golden key which unlocks the doors 
 of the hearts of others. 
 
 Teach us that our sympathies can be educated. 
 
 When Henry W. Grady was hesitating whether to 
 remain on a New York newspaper or return to 
 Georgia, he decided to go back home because nobody 
 in the apartment house in which he lived could tell 
 him about the babe whose little coffin was carried 
 side by side with him down the stairs. The inhu- 
 manity of New York overwhelmed him. 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 " That is not literally true," you say ; no, it is much 
 truer. It is a truth of the heart. 
 
 We are accountable for what we can prevent. The 
 silence of intimates often means censure, when from 
 strangers it would mean merely unconcern. 
 
CHEISTIAN VIETUES 99 
 
 You know the value of a gem of the first water. 
 When you hold it in your hand you hold one of Na- 
 ture's bank vaults packed full of wealth. There is 
 in it a wealth of beauty and of sparkle. Turn the 
 light into it. You will see this. When subjected to 
 the light you find yourself looking into a great deep. 
 Depth opens beyond depth, as though there were no 
 end to the chambers of splendor. Flake after flake 
 of luminous color floats up from unseen fountains of 
 light that are hidden away in the heart of the little 
 stone. A great cardinal truth is such a gem. 
 
 Truth always receives its highest expression in and 
 through a person. This Jesus Christ Himself teaches 
 when He stands forth and says, " I am the truth." 
 Truth in life-form is an authority. In this form it 
 commands and is obeyed. It is light and it reveals. 
 It makes a man luminous. A Shekinah personality 
 like St. Columba: his Shekinah hand made a copy of 
 the psalter in the dark. 
 
 Oratory, however polished, and scholarship, how- 
 ever plausible, cannot stand before the wrath of an 
 indignant man in a righteous cause. 
 
 Hogarth drew the rake and the harlot without 
 glorifying their end. 
 
 THE HEROIC HEART. 
 
 As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. What we 
 are in the depth of our nature, finds its way into our 
 acts. Two boys were going up the stairs of a Cin- 
 cinnati factory. There was a pail of naphtha on the 
 landing into which one boy threw a lighted cigarette, 
 thinking it water. There was a flash of upleaping 
 
100 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 flames, one boy darted into the street, the other ran 
 up the stairs to warn the girls working above, that 
 they might escape. Neither boy had time to ponder. 
 Each acted instantly, instinctively. One was a cow- 
 ard in the depth of his nature, the other a hero; and 
 neither of them- knew it. The secret of doing right 
 lies in the ideas we select to have rule over our minds 
 and control our lives. 
 
 The dead engine on the track and the engineer 
 who sacrificed himself. He did the one and only 
 thing to be done, if the passengers on his train were 
 to be saved. He drew the lever and put on a full 
 head of steam, such a head of steam as lifted and 
 knocked the dead engine off the track. The train 
 was saved, but of course he was crushed beyond rec- 
 ognition. His heroism told. It saved scores of hu- 
 man lives. All the saved sang his praises. One put 
 him into a song, another into a picture, and another 
 into a beautifully written story. 
 
 As a fortification against loneliness it is necessary 
 to have resources in oneself. 
 
 THANKSGIVING. 
 
 We have met this morning, on Easter Day, to cele- 
 brate the greatest fact known to mankind, the resur- 
 rection of Jesus Christ our Master. We have met to 
 talk with the witnesses of this great fact and to feel 
 anew the power and adequacy of their testimony. 
 This day then is one of the evidences that " He is 
 risen." It was named by His name " The Lord's 
 Day." It has become the Holy Sabbath because of 
 this fact. It has displaced the day which was the 
 
CHEISTIAN VIETUES 101 
 
 Sabbath from the beginning of the world. This in 
 itself was a mighty revolution which could not have 
 taken place without an adequate cause. For nineteen 
 hundred years it has come to mankind with its Easter 
 Message that the " Lord has risen, the Lord has risen 
 indeed." We praise Thee, O God, for the first day of 
 the week — the Sabbath, and for its repeated message. 
 
 Easter gives us a fine outlook on the life beyond 
 the grave. 
 
 We thank Thee for the record of the experience of 
 the sons and daughters of God, for the songs of the 
 souls which they have sung; for the vision which 
 they saw; for their prayers, for their sorrows and 
 consolations and triumphs. They enrich us. They 
 warn us. They inspire us. They have ascended to 
 employ the ripened energies of their souls in higher 
 service. 
 
 Thou hast given us songs to sing, tune our hearts 
 so that we may properly sing them. Help us to sing 
 them with spirit and soul. 
 
 We thank Thee for the great books of truth out of 
 which Thou art speaking to mankind, the book of 
 life, human experience, the book of nature, the book 
 written by holy men of old. The Bible, the book of 
 providence, history. 
 
 Great hymns set to great music, roll against the 
 heart and mind of the people. Thus is a religious 
 thought climaxed. 
 
 Give us songs to sing that shall thrill through the 
 eternities. 
 
102 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Our Father, we thank Thee for the message of this 
 holy hour; carrying this message with us, we leave 
 Thy house full of thanksgiving; singing in our hearts 
 the song of faith and confidence. We thank Thee for 
 the truth, and for the cause of truth which Thou hast 
 established on earth. We thank Thee for the word 
 of God, which is contained in the scripture of the Old 
 and New Testaments, which teaches us what we are 
 to believe concerning God, and what duty God re- 
 quires of man. We thank Thee for the succession of 
 the Godly. We thank Thee for the men of God who 
 live within the lids of the Holy Book, the patriarchs, 
 the prophets, the psalmists, and the apostles, and we 
 thank Thee for those men of God who live and have 
 lived outside the lids of the Holy Book, the lawgiv- 
 ers, the poets, the philosophers, the statesmen, the 
 scientists, the philanthropists, the great men of all 
 races and nations, who have walked with God and 
 communed with God and have been His mouthpiece 
 to their fellowmen. Thou hast never left Thyself 
 without witnesses among men; even in the darkest 
 ages, Thou hast had those to whom Thou hast re- 
 vealed Thyself and who have spoken for Thee. They 
 have always been men who have followed the inner 
 light and Thou hast made them leaders of the world. 
 We thank Thee for the Christian Church, the pillar 
 and ground of truth, to which have been committed 
 the oracles of God. We thank Thee for the kingdom 
 of God in the world, which is larger and greater than 
 the Church, and for the building up of which the 
 Church lives and labors. We thank Thee that in this 
 Kingdom religion has its largest sway, finding its 
 embodiment in righteous laws, in holy humanities, in 
 •the learned sciences, and in a great Christian civili- 
 
CHEISTIAN VIETUE9 103 
 
 zation. We thank Thee for the testimony of science 
 to the faithfulness of God to all His principles and 
 laws in which He has led mankind to trust. Above 
 all, we thank Thee for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
 " Who is the brightness of the Father's glory and the 
 express image of His person." We thank Thee for 
 the gospel which He preached, the life which He 
 lived, the sacrifice which He made, and the character 
 which He built up as an example for man. Make 
 and keep us true to Him. Help us so to live that we 
 shall be His facsimiles winning men to Him. We 
 thank Thee for the Vision Splendid and the Age of 
 Gold, which beckon us up and on, the predicted era 
 in the future reign of Thy Son when none shall need 
 to say unto another, " Know the Lord, for all shall 
 know Thee " from the least unto the greatest, the 
 years when the sword shall be beaten into the plough- 
 share and the spear into the pruning hook, and na- 
 tions shall learn the art of war no more, the era when 
 all the arts and crafts and industries and pleasures, 
 professions and civilization of the world shall be in- 
 scribed " Holiness unto the Lord." We offer our 
 prayer in the name of the Master to whom be glory 
 forever and ever. Amen. 
 
 I sing better after listening to David's harp. 
 
 CRUSADERS' HYMN 
 
 " Fairest Lord Jesus, 
 Ruler of Nature! 
 
 Jesus of God and of Mary the Son ! 
 Thee will I cherish, 
 Thee will I honor, 
 Thee, my delight and my glory and crown ! 
 
104 A BOOK OP EBMEMBEANCE 
 
 " Fair are the meadows, 
 Fairer the woodlands. 
 Robed in the flowery vesture of spring; 
 Jesus is fairer, 
 Jesus is purer. 
 Making my sorrowful spirit to sing. 
 
 " Fair is the moonshine, 
 Fairer the sunlight. 
 
 Than all the stars of the heavenly host; 
 Jesus shines lighter, 
 Jesus shines purer. 
 Than all the angels that heaven can boast." 
 
 This hymn was written in the twelfth century and 
 sung by the army of the Crusaders who sought to 
 recover the Holy Land from the Saracens. There is 
 a legend that it was composed by a crusader and was 
 found, both words and music, in his helmet as he lay 
 dead upon the field. We long to believe the legend 
 true. It was the marching music of his life. It gives 
 us each a tender vision and makes the hymn live. 
 What a stir it made when found. 
 
 We thank Thee for the fellowship of the saints, for 
 our communion with regenerated men and women. 
 To know these and trust these, and love these, and 
 imitate these, and admit these into our lives, is a re- 
 ligion in itself. 
 
 We thank Thee for the songs of praise, the songs 
 of the soul, which have been gathered from the ages 
 of Christian experience. Help us so to use them that 
 they will bring us hope and peace and uplift and in- 
 spiration. By them may we sing ourselves through 
 
 %f.^ 
 
CHEISTIAN VIRTUES 105 
 
 the dark valleys of life as our fathers have done be- 
 fore us. 
 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 There are mountain-top moments in every life 
 when we see the pattern on the Mount. We see the 
 star and take our bearings. In these mountain-top 
 moments we are all idealists. God be praised for 
 these Heavenly Hills. 
 
 God has given us a number of Bibles; — Nature, 
 Providence, Human Consciousness, all are Books of 
 God. 
 
 Our lives should be full of transfigurations. 
 
 Our ideals are powers. They ennoble us, purify 
 us, inspire us, and fire us with ruling ambitions. 
 They beautify, touch and retouch, re-idealize and 
 transfigure. 
 
 At the center of life should be worship; the Sanc- 
 tuary of God; everything should radiate from that 
 center, all the activities, pursuits, arts, education, 
 commerce, recreations. That is the secret of a fine 
 life. 
 
 Some people's religion narrows their life. May our 
 religion not be such. 
 
 There is a golden past as well as a golden future. 
 
 The greatest agency in the known world is Holy 
 Love. It celestializes the face, builds up a shining 
 personality and lives a shining life. 
 
106 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANOE 
 
 Inspiration is not ancient history. The vision 
 splendid always dawns. What He was He is. What 
 He did He does. What He said He says. God is 
 not old. He is as new as the latest apple-blossom. 
 Yes, God is equal to another Augustine, another Cal- 
 vin, Wesley, Beecher, Brooks, Spurgeon, Emerson, 
 Lowell, Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow, Whittier, 
 Wagner, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Gladstone, Lincoln. 
 
 How near a man may get to God, and how inti- 
 mate he may be with God is shown to us by John and 
 Paul and the New Testament saints. 
 
 Browning would have you trust those moments 
 when the grand hope seems true to you. 
 
 Jaded nerves cannot thrill. Emotions are seeds, 
 just as thoughts are, and just as pictures are. 
 
 Life consists of a sense of values. May we be 
 among the twice born, the consecrated, the inspired, 
 the pure in heart, that see God and who see as God 
 
 sees. 
 
 Some natures are magnets. " They looked unto 
 Him and were radiant." Hawthorne's " Great Stone 
 Eace." " Ernest was transformed by it." 
 
 If the spirit of Newton, Mendelssohn, Angelo, en- 
 tered into you, there would be results. Yes, even so 
 the entrance of God's spirit means a man's transfig- 
 uration into the image of God. Are you willing to be 
 made willing? 
 
 The only men who are pure are the men engaged 
 in some lofty pursuit or possessed by a great love- 
 
CHEISTIAU VIETTJES 107 
 
 It will not shock any student of comparative re- 
 ligions to be told that the God who inspired Jesus in- 
 spired also Socrates, and Moses, and Spinoza, and 
 Mohammed, et al., and to find some of the loveHest 
 sayings of Jesus among the sayings of Confucius and 
 Moses. 
 
 SELF-EXAMINATION. 
 
 Let a man examine himself, i. e., take a self -in- 
 ventory. 
 
 It is not more light that we need, but more sight. 
 Help us to take time to see. 
 
 Men are not broken to pieces from outside misfor- 
 tune: they go to pieces on the inside as the resuh of 
 secret disloyalty to the Heavenly Vision which in 
 some degree shines upon every soul. 
 
 Hogarth never drew a more useful moral than in 
 the cartoon which represents a man in the debtor's 
 prison occupying himself with plans for the payment 
 of the national debt. 
 
 Talk to your soul, recount its possibilities, hold it 
 to its responsibilities, question it about its choices, 
 deepen its convictions, give it songs to sing. 
 
 The virtue that is not passionate is of no value. 
 Make Jesus Christ your passion. 
 
 Not to have found your formula is not to have 
 found yourself and can only be expressed in frac- 
 tions, and vulgar fractions at that. 
 
108 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEAFCE 
 
 Like the dreams of the opium eater, we create our 
 own world. 
 
 Give the nerves relaxation through tears. These 
 tears are a blessing. First tears come, then sleep. 
 
 Are you a sinner or an ex-sinner? " Sin is a dark- 
 ness of the mind." 
 
 Man is priced by himself. For thirty pieces of 
 silver Judas sold himself, not Christ. 
 
 What would a man change in parents, country, 
 church, opportunities, results of life? What? 
 Would he have chosen to be born at sixty ? Does he 
 accept the situation as though he were a party to it? 
 Does he assent? Every one cannot be Napoleon or 
 Bismarck and walk off with the Bells of Notre Dame. 
 Every one must bear his own universe. Do you ac- 
 cept yourself as you were born? 
 
 The mind tires of everything that is monotonous, 
 even of perfect happiness. 
 
 We are stirred and moved this day by reminiscences 
 and retrospects. The past lives anew for us. Teach 
 us how to gather the lessons of the bygone ages that 
 we may be mightily blessed thereby. The changes are 
 neither slight nor infinitesimal. There is a thinning 
 of the ranks, and differences in those that remain. 
 Changes may mean progress but what we have to 
 guard against is arrested development. 
 
 Help us to find our lost laughter. 
 
CHEISTIAN VIETUBS 109 
 
 MAXIMS. 
 
 Tremendous forces are coiled up in the soul. 
 
 May we know love as a divine contagion. 
 
 God is always anticipating glorious transfigurations 
 of character. 
 
 There is an education by atmosphere. 
 
 A man of sixty-five is supposed to have sinned all 
 his sins, and to have entered on his sainthood. 
 
 Some gain a religious vocabulary rather than a re- 
 ligious experience. 
 
 Unbelief has many beliefs. 
 
 Idleness is dishonesty. 
 
 Save us from heresy draped in the costume of 
 romance. 
 
 Remember those who are only infidels by mistake. 
 
 Learning is not accumulation; it is assimilation. 
 
 Every intuition of ours is a talk with God. 
 
 It is a responsibility to have somebody fond of you. 
 
 All autobiographies have more or less fiction in 
 them. 
 
 Tact is the talent of talents. 
 
 We cannot take the views of others on credit. We 
 must rethink them, and make them our own. 
 
110 A BOOK OF EEM:EMBEAI!J"CB 
 
 There is such a thing as an excess of abstinence. 
 
 With some men it is gilt-edged things every time. 
 
 Don't tempt the future. 
 
 Supreme moods can never be recaptured or re- 
 peated. 
 
 Balance is a golden quality. 
 
 Heaven itself could not make some people happy. 
 
 Govern warm impulses with cold reason. 
 
 A halo is the only thing that gives out light yet 
 needs no fuel. 
 
 Lack of opportunity discourages ambitions. 
 
 A judicious scepticism is the salt of life. 
 
 When you accept a present you have dissolved the 
 pearl of independence in the vinegar of obligation. 
 
 The hour of climax in the path of duty. 
 
 The finest thoughts are those that remain unwrit" 
 ten. 
 
 One man with God is a majority. 
 
 Let us oxygenate life with leisure. 
 
 Minds stuffed with facts are not nourished by 
 them. 
 
 The Nemesis of Dogmatism is Scepticism. 
 
CHRISTIAH VIETUES 111 
 
 Formerly men had convictions ; now they have only 
 opinions. 
 
 Desire is destiny. Desire cuts a pathway to the 
 coveted end. 
 
 God's thoughts are facts. 
 
 The soul is the cardinal beautifier. 
 
 From twenty-five to forty; the fifteen golden years 
 of Hfe. 
 
 To Jesus Christ there are no alien races. 
 
 Generalizations are blank cartridges. 
 
 Purity is not innocence, but conquest 
 
 Ringing Maxims: it is good to have them. Dull- 
 ness is a crime. 
 
 Humor humanizes the truth and makes it compan- 
 ionable. 
 
 False names sometimes transfigure sin. 
 
 A vision is not an impromptu affair. 
 
 Fine thoughts are medicinal. 
 
 Beauty is the bride of holiness. 
 
 Limbo should have a large place in theology. 
 
 There are healthy heresies. 
 
 There are intellects that yawn over the Bible and 
 Shakespeare. 
 
112 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Great ideas protect themselves; they are imperish- 
 able. 
 
 Good taste is a species of religion. 
 
 " Civilization " is simply the secular name for 
 " Christianity." 
 
 It is tiresome to be yourself all the time. 
 
 Give your work a soul. 
 
 Man is priced by himself. 
 
 A new thought is a tonic. 
 
 A new thrill means health. 
 
 A new scene is hygienic. 
 
 Like Thoreau, indulge yourself in fine renounce- 
 ments. 
 
 Have a hero. A hero is not a luxury but a neces- 
 sity. 
 
 Most men need stimulus rather than restraint. 
 
 Service to man is the highest worship of God. 
 
 Masterpieces have never been produced by those 
 who have no masters. 
 
 Duty performed is a rainbow to the soul. 
 
 The soul is but the sense catching fire. 
 
 The religions are not alien one to another. They 
 are akin. 
 
CHEISTIAN YIETUES 113 
 
 The young intellectuals are the rulers of to-mor- 
 row. 
 
 . The Christian life is a life of verbs, i. e., it is a life 
 of action, doing. 
 
 Duties are ours; events are God's. 
 
 Aspirations and attainments go together. 
 
 No men are entirely useless; the Vigilance Com- 
 mittee can sometimes make use of a man in starting a 
 graveyard. 
 
 Many people amuse us exceedingly, who up-their- 
 sleeve are amused at us. 
 
 A man who decides there is no future despises the 
 present. 
 
 Slander takes on the guilt of the crime alleged. 
 
 The easiest way to provoke a liar is to put him on 
 the defensive. 
 
 I sometimes think that life deals too easily with 
 most of us to bring out the best that is in us. 
 
 " New Presbyter " is but old " Priest " writ large. 
 
 Vanity is only self-respect multiplied. 
 
 The greatest enemy of to-day is to-morrow. 
 
 A sense of humor is a strong ally. 
 
 The basis of democracy is that all men are entitled 
 to see that their neighbors suffer equally with them- 
 selves. 
 
114 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Ever}d:hing in the world is for sale if it can get its 
 price. 
 
 Men who live in solitude are tempted daily. 
 
 You can't pigeonhole a big man. 
 
 Conscience is the soul's compass. 
 
 A man who makes no progress, his place is in the 
 cemetery. 
 
 The lovers of simplicity, too, can exaggerate. 
 
 Worry is a blunder. Despair is a sin. Sin makes 
 a man a coward. Faith makes the weak man a giant. 
 
 Capital is hoarded labor. 
 
 Be a grindstone to dull knives. 
 
 Don't palm off any second-class thing on God. 
 
 The sun shines as gladly on coffins as on cradles. 
 
 A man's enemies are those who extol him for gifts 
 he has not. 
 
 Politeness in itself is a power. 
 
 There is nothing so hygienic as friendship. 
 
 I do not believe in " The ring-in-the-nose re- 
 ligion." 
 
 Even in liberal Athens there was the cup of hem- 
 lock. 
 
 A purposeful man is a good chairman for a pur- 
 poseful occasion. « 
 
CHEISTIAN VIETUES 115 
 
 Life without love is a harp without strings. 
 
 With alluring names vices become merely quaint 
 little eccentricities. 
 
 It is proverbial that great men have had great 
 mothers. 
 
 Honest indignation has the very purity of virtue. 
 Divorce is the sacrament of adultery. 
 A poor man has but few adherents. 
 
 When a child is born in America he is born in an 
 atmosphere of expectation. 
 
 One-fourth of mankind do all the work. 
 
 Rumor has it that there be Americans who are 
 never happy unless they are passing themselves off 
 for Englishmen. 
 
 Exile makes fast friends. It is only in prosperity 
 that we throw our friends overboard. 
 
 Nothing subdues like marriage. 
 
 Men without faults are apt to be men without 
 force. A round diamond has no brilliancy. 
 
 No man is greater than his mother. 
 
 A few of us have already died. I have been at 
 their funeral. 
 
 Regenerate the theologies and make them Chris- 
 tian. 
 
116 A BOOK OF KEMEMBEANCB 
 
 There is no despair like the despair of youth. 
 
 Negatives do not define. 
 
 Etiquette is simply social agreement in living to- 
 gether. 
 
 Poets are teachers; experiences are lessons; 
 friends are guides; w^ork is a master; love is an in- 
 terpreter. 
 
 Linguists are seldom thinkers. 
 
 The tests of manhood, viz., long neglect, and sud- 
 den popularity; both tests are searching. 
 
 Ridicule is the most powerful weapon known to 
 humanity. 
 
 A man becomes at last what he loves best. 
 
 All generalization is a form of hedging. 
 
 " The Ladies of the Lake ; " Chicago, Cleveland, 
 Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo, Duluth. 
 
 The British make merits of their stupidities. 
 Every ambitious man is by nature a gambler. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE STATE 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 OUR Republic is God's great loom for the in- 
 terweaving of the peoples of the earth. The 
 noble men and women forming the different 
 races of the old world are the threads of silk and of 
 silver and of gold, and the fabric woven is the Ameri- 
 can Republic, beautiful with its holy freedom, its con- 
 stitutional rights, and its magnificent and elevating 
 institutions both civil and religious. 
 
 Death hath starred their names, and like stars 
 " God calleth them all by name." 
 
 The hero dies on the battle-field and with his blood 
 makes beautiful some flag of liberty. 
 
 Give us the international mind, that mind that har- 
 monizes with the ICingdom of God on earth, and that 
 seeks and acknowledges the good of the brotherhood 
 of mankind. 
 
 A fellowship that is a power; — the two sacraments 
 of our nation: the sacred flag and the patriotic song. 
 
 " An honorable sorrow," those are the words which 
 Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles in his 
 great funeral speech for those who have fallen in the 
 war. It is an honorable sorrow their parents have 
 and " Be comforted by the glory of those who have 
 gone." 
 
 117 
 
U8 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 We have a Republic to preserve in this country. 
 By making and keeping our Republic what it ought to 
 be we can best serve the world. 
 
 The League of Nations is an attempt to apply 
 Christian principles to international relationship. In 
 the past we have been applying Pagan principles. 
 
 The two things that count in national life: 
 (a) A succession of writers of genius. 
 (&) The proud memories of great, noble, and 
 honorable deeds. 
 
 Cooperation and profit sharing are the only dis- 
 tinctive terms of peace. We should organize our 
 national resources to the end that our liberties and 
 rights may be maintained, and our national obliga- 
 tions be fulfilled. Humanity is deeper than nation- 
 ality. 
 
 Our patriotism needs vitalizing. What do you 
 conceive America to be? We are a fraction of a 
 great whole. We have called our country " the melt- 
 ing pot of the nations," but we need more fire to melt 
 the hyphens. 
 
 A diminution in the world of Anglo-Saxon prestige 
 would mean a diminution of American prestige. 
 Our nearest kinship is English. We share the 
 northern continent of America with her. 
 
 Resolve to die for something infinitely greater than 
 life. 
 
 There is a kind of professional patriot. 
 
 National heroes are the best possession of a people. 
 
THE STATE 121 
 
 STATESMANSHIP. - the 
 
 The Church should assume the leadership here in - 
 social reform. 
 
 In our leaders may universal talents be combined 
 with great integrity of purpose and purity of life. 
 
 The social movement, — a higher way of looking at 
 society, and man's responsibility to and for his fel- 
 lowmen. 
 
 A public meeting is necessary to voice the indig- 
 nation of the civic conscience. 
 
 The recipe for reforming the world is, " Reform 
 yourself." 
 
 Give us the international mind that we may be 
 interested in the Lord's work in all lands. 
 
 The savage in Central Africa, the man with no 
 language; who is only beginning to emerge from the 
 stone age ! Yet it is perfectly on the cards that that 
 man's son may one day be a Premier in the service 
 of the British Empire. 
 
 PEACE AND WAR. 
 
 We can do more for Humanity with the Sermon 
 on the Mount than with all the Dreadnoughts and 
 armies on which we are wasting our resources. 
 
 How many purposeless men there were in the 
 world before the war. 
 
118 
 
 IV 
 
 SOCIETY 
 GREAT LIVES. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO invested his life in a 
 cathedral — he invested it in St. Peter's, 
 Rome; Christopher Wren in St. Paul's, 
 London; John Calvin in a system of theology that 
 bears his name, a system that has built strong 
 churches and great republics; Raphael in gorgeous 
 paintings — the Dresden Madonna and the Vatican 
 Transfiguration of the Master; Luther in the great 
 German Reformation; John Knox in the Scottish 
 Reformation. 
 
 A great man is like a diamond that is cut with 
 many facets, from any one of which the beauty may 
 be seen and appreciated. All the facets cannot be 
 seen at once. 
 
 A commanding personality is a dictatorship. 
 
 Anniversaries of notable men rally in us the trait 
 to which their career gave emphasis. Holy days and 
 holidays are no mere memorials, but indispensable 
 opportunities for one's own fulfillment. 
 
 The divine touch of noble natures is a tonic: it in- 
 spires. The tonic oxygenizes the blood. Its pleasure 
 is the climax of climaxes. It is a miracle of thrill. 
 It is a pleasure that cannot be augmented. 
 
 120 
 
SOCIETY 121 
 
 To come into contact even in print with one of the 
 purest and most exemplary Hves is to derive some- 
 thing of those qualities which combine to make the 
 man a great living force. 
 
 Historic places are places that live: so are historic 
 persons: they kindle a keen and fine excitement in 
 all who come into contact with them. 
 
 Some men's lives are the home of fair visions, 
 noble thoughts, and kind and courteous deeds. 
 
 The more one knows and sees, and the more one 
 travels, the more he finds that so-called gifted men 
 are but the expression of his own thoughts. 
 
 We thank Thee for the names that are still fra- 
 grant in after centuries. 
 
 Give us choice fellowships, picked souls with picked 
 thoughts. 
 
 The possibilities of the present, and the prospects 
 of the future should commune with the men who are 
 doing the work of the world. 
 
 The great dead do not feel the power of West- 
 minster Abbey ; but the great living do. Westminster 
 Abbey is the promise of a crown of life to those who 
 are faithful. It is a promise built into the form of 
 massive stone and sculptural marble. 
 
 There are those who focus their life into one word, 
 Luther " Faith," R. L. Stevenson " Courtesy," Plato 
 "Beauty," John "Love," Jesus "Life." These 
 words recall them. They were the key-note of their 
 thinking. 
 
122 A7B00K OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 In all ages the human heart has hungered for 
 heroes. It must have some forehead over which to 
 break its alabaster box, some feet to wash with its 
 tears of love. In Tasso's time when Michael Angelo 
 completed the lustrous angels on the ceiling of the 
 Sistine Chapel the admiring multitudes tore his 
 brushes into fragments for mementoes, and making 
 a chariot of their arms, bore the artist home to his 
 lodgings. Thus they honored their hero. 
 
 The sound of great old men departing deadens our 
 ears to the sound of great young men arriving. 
 
 As a rule men do their best work before they be- 
 come famous. 
 
 The world's great assets are its great minds. 
 
 Ruskin wrote, " Lowell does me good in my dull 
 fits: he encourages me; he makes me laugh." Lowell 
 wrote Longfellow, " You have sung me out of my 
 sorrows." 
 
 Ulysses, the best that Greece or Rome offers, was 
 a man of action. That is why he takes. Action al- 
 ways thrills. 
 
 Alexander the Great always carried with him a 
 copy of Homer's Iliad, and Achilles became his ideal. 
 Here is the secret of much that Alexander did. It 
 was Achilles that made him. 
 
 Is there any one in Westminster Abbey that com- 
 pares with Christ? The whole Abbey is His monu- 
 ment. 
 
 A little while before he died Francis of Assist sang 
 
SOCIETY 123 
 
 a song which has been called " The Canticle of the 
 Sun." It sings only of common things; but it is a 
 Psalm of great thanksgiving for life. It rose from a 
 bed from which the poor, worn, weary saint could 
 never rise, but it soared to heaven a fair memorial of 
 one who had tasted Hfe full to the last with a thrill- 
 ing joy. 
 
 Pure hero worship is healthy ; it stimulates to hero- 
 ism. It gives models of manhood. The better in- 
 stincts of the human race have elevated its heroes by 
 eloquent eulogies, histories, monuments, and songs. 
 This is a healthy return. Remember there are heroes 
 of defeat. 
 
 Beecher speaking on U. S. Grant says: " Three ele- 
 ments enter into the career of a great citizen: (a) 
 That which his ancestry gives, (b) That which op- 
 portunity gives, (c) That which his will develops." 
 
 Not only was every sentence of Carlyle ladened 
 with intellect, it was ladened with character. 
 
 Gladstone banked on his body. He counted health 
 a great asset. Don't waste your nervous capital. 
 
 Saul was a ten-talented man. Browning in his 
 poem, Stanley in his story, and Chopin in his 
 " Funeral March " have enshrined the young King in 
 a mausoleum nobler than one built of marble. Ro- 
 mantic indeed this adventurous and many-colored 
 career, that began with the sheep-cote, passed quickly 
 to the King's palace and ended midst the shock and 
 thunder of battle. He begins with the irresistible fas- 
 cination that only the greatest possess. Like Aga- 
 
124 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCB 
 
 memnon, he stood head and shoulders above the peo- 
 ple. A fascinating human figure. When he hurled his 
 javelin at David, the shepherd boy, he met the con- 
 tempt of all brave men. " How are the mighty 
 fallen ! " The saddest chapter in literature is the his- 
 tory of our ten-talented men, the sons of genius. 
 
 What would not this nation give to-day if Daniel 
 Webster, Rufus Choate, and Edward Everett, had 
 only refused compromise, stood unflinchingly for 
 principle and marched in life straight to defeat which 
 would have meant certain victory after death. 
 
 The great roll of great men with whom Gladstone 
 was associated shows that his was the age of giants; 
 Sir Robert Peel, O'Connell, Macaulay the essayist, 
 Grote the historian, Bulwer the novelist, Cobden the 
 friend of the common people, John Bright the 
 Quaker orator who modelled his speech upon the sim- 
 ple style of the Bible and John Bunyan, Disraeli 
 whose pastime was novel writing, Lord Randolph 
 Churchill, Mr. Balfour the metaphysician, and Lord 
 Salisbury the Prime Minister. His was the age 
 of giants. Gladstone was of Scotch descent, only an 
 Englishman by birth. His father exchanged Leith 
 for Liverpool. The Prime Minister once in address- 
 ing his constituents in Midlothian expressed his 
 pride in the fact that every drop of blood in his veins 
 was pure Scotch. The Highlanders are men of large 
 stature, brave and brawny, and the iron and granite 
 of the Highland mountains found their way into the 
 physique of this hero. His was the genius of patriot- 
 ism. He was the Christian scholar in politics. The 
 most fascinating period of Gladstone's career was be- 
 
SOCIETY 125 
 
 tween seventy and eighty-five. What color is to 
 Raphael, what music is to Mozart, what philosophy 
 is to Bacon, that religion is to Gladstone. He is the 
 Christian scholar in politics, 
 
 Socrates rejoiced in his sentence to death because 
 through its execution he would escape the decadence 
 that attends old age. Socrates no doubt has been 
 idealized by Plato. His was a Hellenic life. 
 
 Elizabeth Fry visited all the prisons in England, 
 Scotland and Ireland. She was invited to visit the 
 prisons of Paris and report. She went to Belgium, 
 Holland and Germany. She said to the King of 
 France, " Build prisons with the idea of reformation, 
 not revenge." She even suggested that he and his 
 children might occupy the cells. To Sir Robert Peel 
 and his cabinet she read the story of the gallows 
 Haman built. She labored for half a century. In 
 penology nothing has been added to her philosophy. 
 
 Madame de Stael said of Napoleon, " There is 
 nothing for him but himself; all other things are so 
 many ciphers." Yes, he was the incarnation of self- 
 ishness. Name another woman who touches life at 
 so many points as did Madame de Stael. Hers were 
 home, health, wealth, strength, honor, affection, ap- 
 plause, motherhood, loss, danger, death, defect, sacri- 
 fice, humiliation, illness, banishment, imprisonment, 
 escape. Then again hope, returning strength, wealth, 
 recognition, fame, friends. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott and Turner, the artist, were great 
 friends. They took long trips through Scotland to- 
 gether, but they did not appreciate each other's work. 
 
126 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Scott was ignorant concerning the art of painting. 
 He confessed that it was beyond his ken " why peo- 
 ple bought Turner's pictures." Turner in his turn 
 said: " As for your books the covers of some of them 
 are very pretty." Turner's picture of " The Old 
 Temeraire," is that of the old warship sold out of 
 service being towed away to be broken up. Turner 
 immortalized the scene by putting it on canvas. 
 About the picture Ruskin writes: "Of the pictures 
 not visibly involving human pain this is the most 
 pathetic ever painted." The particular ship was 
 crowned with victory in the battle of Trafalgar. 
 
 Seven college-bred men composed the cabinet of 
 Lincoln. He weighed more than all put together. 
 
 John Calvin was illustrious as a radical. He broke 
 away from the reigning spirit of his own time and 
 led the spirit of free inquiry. He would be a liberal 
 leader to-day no doubt. It was in the man. He lived 
 in a day when the King and Priest had more power 
 than God. He made God supreme and put King and 
 Priest in their proper place. The sovereignty of God 
 was his key-note. 
 
 James Russell Lowell was New England at its best. 
 He embraced literature as a profession. He did fine 
 work in a fine way. He used a silver hammer. He 
 belonged to the massive race. 
 
 Livingstone gave a continent to commerce and 
 Christianity. He was of Scotland's sturdiest stock, 
 and was hammered out on the anvil of adversity. As 
 a boy he formed those habits of patient and accurate 
 research that made him the ripe scholar he was. In- 
 
SOCIETY 127 
 
 terested in the classics, he laid the foundations for his 
 study of the dialects of Africa. No discoverer in all 
 history ever had such a career. He had five years of 
 solitude in the forest, while he traversed the African 
 continent. He wrote the story of his travels and ex- 
 plorations in order to secure funds for another ex- 
 pedition for missionary purposes. The first edition 
 of twelve thousand sold in one week for a guinea 
 each. Thus he went back. He aimed to destroy the 
 slave trade. It was in 1871 that his faithful Susa 
 came crying, " Master, a white man comes." In an- 
 other moment he had grasped the hand of Stanley, 
 sent out by the New York Herald to find Livingstone. 
 He died on his knees praying for Africa. 
 
 When we call the roll of great men with whom 
 Gladstone was associated, we see that his was indeed 
 an age of giants. He stood forth the first statesman 
 of the Victorian era. At eighty-five he wrote " The 
 Impregnable Rock of Holy Scriptures." His crown- 
 ing characteristic was his intellectual hospitality. 
 
 Lessing writes in his diary: " I will spin myself in 
 for a while, like an ugly worm, that I may be able 
 to come to light again as a brilliant-winged creature." 
 
 What imperfect people can do: — Homer was blind 
 and so were Milton and Ossian. Epictetus was lame, 
 so were Byron, Scott and Lord Kelvin. Plato tells 
 us that " The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr 
 and buffoon, but his soul was all virtue, and from 
 within came such divine and pathetic things as pierced 
 the heart and drew tears from his hearers." St. Paul 
 was little and frail. He was a highly nervous dy- 
 namo. 
 
128 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 All great truths reach the world through the elec- 
 tion and service and ministry of individuals. As a 
 single drop of aniline will tint a hogshead of water, so 
 has the thought of the world been colored by the Au- 
 gustines and the Carlyles and the Kants and the 
 Kegels. 
 
 Giordano Bruno was buried alive in Rome a. d. 
 1600 by order of the Inquisition for asserting that 
 the earth was not standing still, and was not the 
 center of the universe. Galileo, one of the greatest 
 astronomers, was imprisoned for the same cause, the 
 Pope ordering that all the books asserting the motion 
 of the earth be burned. 
 
 Socrates, says Plato, was the " Gad-fly " of the 
 Athenian people pricking intellectual lethargy, forc- 
 ing people to think. That he should have made ene- 
 mies, that he should have been misunderstood, that he 
 should have been accused of undermining the founda- 
 tions of morality and religion is natural and intel- 
 ligible enough. There were thirty days between his 
 sentence and execution. 
 
 John Howard Payne wrote many plays, also he 
 wrote the song " Home Sweet Home." Yet he who 
 set to music one of the strongest emotions felt by 
 humanity was a wanderer most of his life. He was 
 born in New York City and is buried at Tunis, which 
 overlooks the ruins of Carthage. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle was the oldest of nine children. 
 He proved recalcitrant to the faith of his fathers. 
 "A great man, but an infidel." He was educated for 
 the Kirk. One of America's great men said in a 
 
SOCIETT 129 
 
 speech: "From Scotch manners, Scotch religion and 
 Scotch whiskey, good Lord deliver us." Scotch man- 
 ners remind me of chestnut burrs, not handsome with- 
 out but good within, for when you have gotten be- 
 yond the rough exterior of Sandy, you generally find 
 a heart warm, tender and generous. You do not need 
 to eat the burr of the chestnut. There are those who 
 blame and berate Carlyle. His was the masculine 
 mind. Jane Welsh Carlyle had capacity for pain, 
 as it seems all great souls have. When she died 
 Thomas Carlyle was alone, and oh, the loneliness that 
 was his. It was heart-breaking. He cursed curses 
 which were prayers. 
 
 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 To know one beautiful soul is almost a religion in 
 itself. 
 
 " In God and Godlike men I put my trust." 
 
 The touch divine of noble natures: it tones: it in- 
 spires. 
 
 So far as the voices of God are concerned, there are 
 no silent centuries. It seems as if once in a while 
 God sends into the world a human soul so beautiful 
 that it is at once a revelation of Himself and of our 
 possibilities. 
 
 When George Adam Smith undertook to write the 
 biography of Henry Drummond, many felt that it 
 was like the attempt to capture a sunbeam or to im- 
 prison a fragrance. The personality of such a man 
 is a rich gem into which God can pour the light of 
 
130 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 the Gospel and get it back in a prismatic life in flasH- 
 ing colors that charm and thrill. 
 
 Personalities absorb characteristics from surround- 
 ings as flowers absorb colors from the light. 
 
 Men of the Elijah strain; they live intensely; they 
 make crises ; they carry occasions with them wherever 
 they go ; they close their life by going to heaven in a 
 chariot of fire. 
 
 An enthusiast: a man of this type has life in him- 
 self ; and he has it so abundantly that he can commu- 
 nicate it to others. 
 
 The study of mankind is one of perennial interest. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the Master Personality. 
 
 The lines on some men's faces deepen to crevices. 
 
 It is a common thing for one man to live in another 
 man. There are men who rule and electrify others. 
 They have throbbing and enthusiastic natures and 
 they inspire their fellows. Such a man was Arnold 
 of Rugby, who died and left no successor. He in- 
 spired multitudes of men. He so entered into his 
 pupils that he formed from one-third to one-half of 
 many a man. 
 
 We are made by others and that more than we 
 dream. We admit others into our lives. We devour 
 others. We assimilate others. We embody others; 
 we live others; this is true of the very greatest of 
 men, and of the most self-contained and self-suffi- 
 cient. To illustrate: I suppose you would call Goethe 
 
SOCIETY 131 
 
 a great man — a self-contained man — yet who was 
 Goethe? He was a combination-man, a human com- 
 posite. In reading his biography I notice that this 
 one thing occurs again and again when special 
 growths in him are recorded: At this time I met So- 
 and-so of eminence, and he was of special service to 
 me. That is, certain great men coming into Goethe's 
 life brought their greatness with them and contrib- 
 uted to the up-making of Goethe. Thus Goethe grew 
 by his intellectual fellowships. 
 
 All values finally go back to the riches of some per- 
 sonal life. 
 
 The consciousness of one's own force is a fine 
 qualification. 
 
 Save and use that man of splendid powers going to 
 waste. 
 
 Each generation brings a new breed of noble men 
 and women into the world. 
 
 It is personal charm and talent that make a man 
 live in human memories. 
 
 The man who can give inspiration to the men he 
 meets is a success. 
 
 A new person is a great event. 
 
 You can edit a man's conversation by the way you 
 listen to it. There are editors of conversation. They 
 admire; they censure; they italicize; they enlarge. 
 
 A luminous personality sees things by means of 
 himself. 
 
132 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 There are men who create a personal spell. They 
 are possessed of inexhaustible resources; they create 
 an atmosphere; they really give themselves; they in- 
 fect men by their magnificent faith ; they rule by their 
 spirit of self-sacrifice. 
 
 John, who lived in the innermost circle of fellow- 
 ship and who leaned on the Master's bosom, saw and 
 heard things hidden from the other Apostles. 
 
 While Goethe lived contemporary millions bore 
 within them sparks from his soul and were kindled 
 anew. In Napoleon's life nearly the whole period 
 was penetrated by the force of his spirit. A Goethe, 
 a Schiller, a Napoleon, a Luther still live among us 
 thinking and acting in us. 
 
 John was the Plato of Gospel philosophy. 
 
 Personality is a great factor in one's influence in 
 the midst of mankind. It is so constantly asserting 
 itself that it dominates others independent of our 
 volition. 
 
 A long list of spirits have passed from us, whose 
 example was inspirational, whose companionship was 
 heartening, and whose services seemed indispensable. 
 They were elect spirits. Lord send us their succes- 
 sors. 
 
 Rome wanted to hear what Cicero said; 
 Israel wanted to hear what Samuel said ; 
 Athens wanted to hear what Solon said; 
 England wanted to hear what Gladstone said. 
 
SOCIETY 133 
 
 There are those in whose society we are better than 
 when with others. Their presence is a benediction. 
 It has the power to calm, and soothe, and comfort. 
 They make us better. The good gains the ascend- 
 ancy; the mean, the low and selfish flee away. Their 
 faces and their frank, loving eyes carry in them 
 strength and the patience of heaven. They educate 
 us. They cleanse us. They comfort us. They ele- 
 vate us. They vitalize us and they give us larger lib- 
 erty. They communicate themselves to us. They 
 actually enter into us and live in and through us. 
 
 When the waterdrop fellowships with the sunbeam, 
 what? The rainbow, nature's miracle of beauty. 
 There is assimilation by contact. The cloud cannot 
 look into the face of the sun without being made to 
 glow with its splendor. There are men whose at- 
 mosphere is electric. 
 
 Aim to do that which shall enrich and inspire your 
 g'eneration. The eagle made to look the sun in the 
 face fulfilled only the career of a barnyard fowl. 
 Why should gifted men claim exemption from right 
 living ? 
 
 Many a man is formidably powerful chiefly because 
 no one has challenged his power. 
 
 Truth in black ink is not yet equal to truth in the 
 eye and in the voice, in man himself. 
 
 When a strong man quits a room he bequeaths a 
 sudden silence. 
 
 Some people are absinthe, they exhilarate. 
 
134 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 DUTIES. 
 
 We lack stimulating duties. 
 
 Help us to deal with the things that count; to deal 
 in acts that give one pleasure in the retrospect; that 
 give inner consolation. 
 
 Give us the international mind that we may be in- 
 terested in the Lord's work in all lands. 
 
 I am swayed by a consciousness of ought, and 
 ought not. 
 
 WORK. 
 
 Work is a precious privilege. 
 
 Work should be worship. The Bible paints on 
 gold the picture of Ruth, the far-away Gentile, the 
 ancestress of the Messiah. 
 
 The architects who master the great problems of 
 stone and steel and wood give us the great structures 
 of civilization, temples, cathedrals, aqueducts, bridges, 
 universities, warehouses. 
 
 A fine intoxication comes from work well done. 
 
 In Norwich, New York, fifty years ago was a 
 young blacksmith ambitious for success. The town 
 was small, and he was isolated and shut out from the 
 great world of commerce. One day a contractor who 
 had agreed to build a barn came and ordered six ham- 
 mers, the best David Maydole could make. " Per- 
 haps you will not want to pay the price for as good a 
 hammer as I can make." " You make a perfect ham- 
 mer, and we will not quarrel about the price." 
 
SOCIETY 135 
 
 " But," said Maydole, " a perfect hammer means 
 three new things that have never been put into any 
 hammer. It means that the head must be very hard 
 in its temper to drive the nail. It means that the 
 claws must be tough to pull out the nail, and that rep- 
 resents a different temper in the steel. Then it means 
 that the control part must have steel that extends 
 along the handle itself, steel that is soft and flexible; 
 this means a third kind of temper." David Maydole 
 made those six hammers and they were perfect. 
 Each hammer turned the carpenter who used it into 
 an advertising agent. Without Maydole's knowing 
 it, one carpenter spread in New York City the fame 
 of the best hammer in the world. Another in Buf- 
 falo, another in Boston. Soon Maydole began to re- 
 ceive orders for hammers. He never advertised 
 them. They made their own way. One day a 
 Scotchman came to Norwich, New York. He was 
 amazed at the great hammer factory there. When 
 men told this traveller that the best hammer in the 
 world was made here he scoffed at the idea, insisting 
 that there was a hammer made in Great Britain that 
 held the first place. He therefore sent an order to an 
 old friend in Glasgow to find the best hammer he 
 could in England, so that he might meet a wager he 
 had made in Norwich, New York. One day the pack- 
 age reached the village store and the hour came for 
 testing the merits of the Maydole hammer and the 
 strange English hammer, and the package was opened. 
 But when the package was opened, this hammer that 
 had journeyed all the way from England to Norwich, 
 New York, was found to bear David Maydole's name. 
 It had gone to England to meet the man's demand for 
 the best hammer in the world. 
 
136 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Mr. Gladstone kept three desks; at one he worked 
 on politics, statistics, proposed law; at another desk 
 he worked on his literary work, the Greek and Latin 
 poets; and religious books he piled on the third desk. 
 
 Liquor mixes badly with printers' ink. Writers 
 should be teetotalers. 
 
 Try work when trouble comes; it is an infallible 
 cure. 
 
 A mighty group of world powers; The Pulpit, the 
 Press, the Stage, the Easel, the Platform. 
 
 Socrates' idea of an educated man was a useful 
 man. 
 
 DESIRES. 
 
 Desires are the roots of our personality, our being. 
 As they are so are we. They are that which is inner- 
 most in man. They make the very core of our being ; 
 and the core of our being makes us. Jesus compares 
 desire to hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst are 
 tremendous powers; they are controlling forces. De- 
 sires are controlling forces also. They govern our 
 ambitions and our loves, and our lives. When they 
 are taken for Christ, they mean our lives taken for 
 Christ. Desires are pleasing prophecies. They are 
 promises of God in the form of longings, and God 
 must be true to His promises. When we see them, it 
 is as when we see the eye and the ear. The eye is the 
 promise of prophecy of all that is beautiful in color 
 and form. It predicts the flowers of spring clad in 
 royal garments. It predicts the works of Raphael. 
 
SOCIETY 137 
 
 Desire is lasting. Desire cuts the way to success 
 and realization. 
 
 God sends us longings to direct us. 
 
 DENUNCIATION. 
 
 Oh, the sins of great cities, especially those of man 
 against women! We lament them, O Lord. 
 
 DEFEAT. 
 
 The world is built of broken careers and baffled 
 lives, — of tragedies for which there are no explana- 
 tions. 
 
 PUNISHMENT. 
 
 God often punishes a man by allowing him to have 
 his own way. 
 
 When He hurls a thunderbolt He wraps it up in a 
 rainbow, but this does not minimize in the least the 
 deadliness of destructiveness of the bolt. 
 
 Make every man ready for his Calvary. 
 
 The misery of some people is so great that there is 
 no need of a hell for them. 
 
 " I do not know that God has any right to forgive 
 sin." Can a man forgive himself? Hawthorne says: 
 " Yes, through repentance and confession." 
 
 Judas did one good thing, but he did not do it early 
 enough ; " He went out and hanged himself." 
 
 Transgressions are self-punishing. Our earth is 
 too small to make wrong-doing safe. 
 
138 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 HIGH SOCIETY. 
 
 It is hard to have to suffer for the accident of birth 
 and family. Pity such. 
 
 Our millionaires. Sons of success! Ah, but of 
 these men who have made their pile, one is a dyspep- 
 tic, one has hardening of the arteries, etc. " I am 
 tired, tired of it all." They are not half as rich as 
 the poor think they are. " Uneasy lies the head that 
 wears the crown." It is heart excellence that really 
 satisfies. 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 He had plenty to retire on ; but nothing to retire to. 
 
 There is magic in ownership. 
 
 Money held as a trust for the good of mankind. 
 
 Millionaires who laugh are rare. 
 
 Most enterprises are now in corporate forms. 
 
 There is a genius for saving. 
 
 It is well to distribute your surplus during life. 
 
 " The man who dies rich dies disgraced," the man 
 who lives rich lives disgraced. 
 
 To give posterity money at your death is cheap 
 benevolence. You keep it as long as you can keep it. 
 
 We need the poor that we befriend as much as they 
 need us. 
 
 The best gift of God to nations is the gift of up- 
 right men. A land is poor unless its citizens are 
 noble. 
 
SOCIETY 139 
 
 WOMEN. 
 
 I thank Thee for my godly wife. I owe her for a 
 new soul. I learned from her how to overcome my 
 old self and seek a new self. 
 
 To Romeo, Juliet was a religion; to Juliet, Romeo 
 was the universe. 
 
 Coriolanus called Virgilia, his wife, " My Gracious 
 Silence." 
 
 The picture of " The Rope of Ocnus," painted by 
 Polygnotus, a distinguished Greek, fifth century b. c, 
 sets forth profitless labor. It was a picture of a man 
 weaving a rope of straw, while behind him a donkey 
 ate the rope as fast as he wove it. The wife of Ocnus 
 saw the point, and through her subsequent frugality 
 her husband rose to a position of great prosperity. 
 
 Delilah spoiled Samson of his supremacy and man- 
 hood; Cleopatra spoiled Mark Antony. 
 
 Laura lends purity to Petrarch. Beatrice lends 
 light to Dante. Highland Mary lends music to Burns. 
 Elizabeth Browning lends maturity to Robert Brown- 
 ing. 
 
 Aristotle again and again insists on the inferiority 
 of women. "A woman is necessarily an evil, and he 
 is a lucky man who catches her in the mildest form " 
 (Euripides). 
 
 It IS probable that in no period of human history 
 has more pains been taken with the education of 
 women than was taken in Greece. In all the accom- 
 
140 A BOOK OF EEMBMBEANCB 
 
 plishments of learning women were highly educated; 
 in music, in the dance, in poetry, in literature, in his- 
 tory, in philosophy, provided they were to live the 
 lives of courtesans. The fact is simply astounding 
 that in the age of Pericles intelligence and accomplish- 
 ments were associated with impudicity and were signs 
 of it. This throws a sidelight on Paul's teaching on 
 woman, in his Epistle to Timothy. Timothy was 
 Bishop of the Greek Churches in Asia Minor. Hence 
 Paul's limitation placed on women. Knowing full 
 well the public sentiment of the times, Paul says: 
 " Suffer not a woman to teach in your assemblies." 
 " Let the woman keep silence." Why? Because the 
 people would say, this is done of licentiousness, 
 women are teaching. Public sentiment would have 
 drawn wrong conclusions. The Bible honors women 
 as no other book. It gives her the highest station. 
 It puts no limitation on woman's rights, her function, 
 her position. She actually was public in the sense of 
 honor and function. She went unveiled if she 
 pleased. She partook of religious services and led 
 them. She was a judge. She was even a leader of 
 armies. You will not find either in the Old Testa- 
 ment or New Testament one word that limits the 
 position of women till you come to the writings of the 
 Apostle Paul about Grecian women, for only in Cor- 
 inthians and First Timothy you find restrictions. 
 
 Cleopatra was intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, 
 and fascinating. Her father was a Ptolemy — 69 b. c. 
 By birth more of a Greek than African. The Ptole- 
 mies descended from one of Alexander's generals. 
 She had a hold on Antony for fourteen years. Caesar 
 and Antony were the masters of the world. 
 
SOCIETY 141 
 
 The prophet spoke of something, " passing the love 
 of women," but the prophet was wrong, there is noth- 
 ing that does. Some one has written "A woman's 
 love is a dog's love," the dog that craves naught else 
 but the presence of his master, who is faithful to the 
 death, whines out his life on his master's grave, wait- 
 ing for a caress that never comes and the cheery voice 
 that is never heard. That's the way a woman loves. 
 Do you remember how Nancy Sykes crawls inch by 
 inch to reach the hand of Bill, and reaching it, ten- 
 derly caresses the coarse fingers that a moment before 
 clutched her throat, and dies content? That is the 
 love of woman. 
 
 COMPANIONSHIP. 
 
 Companionate with the right people. There are 
 people that give you the blues. 
 
 The secret of my life. I have a friend; he is a 
 princely man in character and in thought; he is a 
 knightly soul, fearless and loving; a gifted personal- 
 ity; he himself is the best message, and he has a 
 genius for friendship. 
 
 Friendship is God's conception of Christianity. 
 
 Human nature is susceptible to human influences; 
 hence we must look after our associations and keep 
 in close touch with God's people. We must people 
 our lives with holy presences which refine; Joshua 
 must live with Moses ; Elisha with Elijah ; Ruth with 
 Naomi; and Timothy with Paul. The atmosphere is 
 electric. So far as the voice of God is concerned, 
 there are no silent centuries. 
 
142 A BOOK OF EEMEMBRANCB 
 
 Our soul friends regale us. The touch of noble 
 natures stimulates, tones up, inspires, — it is an added 
 life. 
 
 We hunger and thirst for the society of some peo- 
 ple. The place where we fellowship becomes a holy- 
 place. 
 
 Greek legend and history resounds with the praises 
 of friends, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Ores- 
 tes, Solon and Peisistratus, Socrates and Alcibiades. 
 
 ELOQUENCE. 
 
 The audience must be prepared for the climacteric 
 speech, as well as the speaker. Example, D'Annun- 
 zio's address at Rome on the return of the Italian rep- 
 resentative from the Paris Peace Conference relative 
 to the Fiume affair. It produced a great effect on 
 the audience. Why? Because the audience was a 
 crowd already thrilling with emotion when his right 
 words were uttered. His picture of the marching 
 legions of the dead was beautiful. They were more 
 than admired ; they were felt. 
 
 Mr. Bryan's " Cross of Gold " speech produced 
 such an effect that the audience went frantic and car- 
 ried him on its shoulders around the Convention Hall. 
 He spoke the words that filled his purpose. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher in the course of an anti- 
 slavery speech seized some shackles that had once fet- 
 tered a slave, threw them on the floor and stamped 
 upon them, and the audience went mad. The audi- 
 ence was ready. If it had not been, the action would 
 
SOCIETY 143 
 
 have fallen flat. It would have been laughable and 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Oratorical devices have often failed because of the 
 audience. See that your audience is prepared. Wake 
 it up before you fire your sky-rocket; then your ad- 
 dress will not only be admired, — it will be effective. 
 
 It is the function of eloquence to enlighten the un- 
 derstanding, to please the imagination, to stir the 
 powers, to influence the will. Now a man who can 
 do this is a man of power. 
 
 There is always a persistent demand for good 
 speaking. The speaker must learn his craft as thor- 
 oughly as a painter, a sculptor, or a musician. That 
 is what Lord Chesterfield taught. 
 
 Three notable speeches in American History: Pat- 
 rick Henry's at Williamsburg, Wendell Phillips' in 
 Faneuil Hall, Abraham Lincoln's at Gettysburg. 
 
 A scientific lecturer once asked Huxley: "With 
 how much knowledge of the subject should a speaker 
 credit his audience ? " Huxley replied not unkindly 
 but tersely, " Credit it with nothing." 
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Don't talk to me about the weather. When people 
 talk to me about the weather, I always feel certain 
 that they mean something else. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Your pure white paper, a few stages back, was a 
 clot of rags. But your note-paper is not a rag. A 
 
144 A BOOK OP BEMEMBEANCE 
 
 wonderful process has intervened. Your snowdrop, 
 your Easter lily, your white rose, a few stages back 
 were earthy brown root-bulbs, soil, manure, but a 
 process has come in between: and now what was un- 
 lovely and soiling to the sense is fit for the King's 
 palace. 
 
 A man should be very Christian towards his own 
 self. 
 
 Progress can be made only through struggle. 
 There are things darker than death. 
 
 Many chemical compounds, including souls, change 
 their behavior and expose their secret identities when 
 they meet the right reagent. 
 
 We need the fine gift of discrimination, the instinct 
 of omission, a penetrating insight. We have not yet 
 attained our growth. 
 
 The new ideal of strength is self-restraint. 
 
 A vision is not an impromptu affair. Let us strive 
 to people our lives with lovely presences that refine, 
 to look after the raptures which thrill us, to fill our- 
 selves with inward forces that purify. Let us make 
 ourselves careful relative to the thoughts we think, 
 the intuitions we trust, the principles we hold, the 
 purposes we cherish, the volitions of our wills, the 
 dictates of our consciences, the loves we allow to sway 
 us, the visions we entertain. If they be Godlike — 
 they will make us Godlike. 
 
 Our passions rule us — ^when they are killed we are 
 left without initiative. We need an electric atmos- 
 
SOCIETT 145 
 
 phere— the touch of other vital lives— the men and 
 women of the Book. We need to live amid the influ- 
 ences of a set of stimuli vi^hich rouse us to action. 
 
 The moral value of a man is in ratio to his faculty 
 of admiration. Our admirations make us. 
 
 We can develop the instinct of right choice; the 
 passion for accuracy. We can delight and enrich the 
 magnetism; refine the taste; and mold and shape the 
 character. 
 
 Let us free ourselves from encumbering luxury, 
 from every self-indulgence that consumes thought, 
 energy, time, means, that could be better employed. 
 To what extent do people feel that we are at their dis- 
 posal, so that they can draw upon us for sympathy, 
 counsel, inspiration, assistance as though we were a 
 bank account standing in their name? How much is 
 our soul in touch with other souls ? 
 
 Work out the beautiful visions of your soul, as did 
 Fra Angelico upon the background of gold, and make 
 the gold more golden. 
 
 The florist knows how to specialize the sun ; and so 
 makes it bring forth exquisite' forms, and colors, 
 which the sun would never create without his inter- 
 position and specializing. He adopts ways and means 
 to let the sun know that he wishes his beams to do 
 special service for him, and give him colors that fairly 
 burn; and the sun responds to his specializing. 
 
 Of a famous artist it was said, " He no longer 
 lives; he repeats himself." Ah! that is the peril, if 
 one be not continually bom anew. 
 
146 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 The young girl went to hear Ruskin and came out 
 from his lecture an artist. The college lad enters the 
 university, and straightway he is born into a new 
 world of science and literature. 
 
 Michael Angelo carried his school satchel all his 
 life. He was always a learner. 
 
 A stimulating atmosphere, what is it? Well — an 
 atmosphere of expectation is stimulating. Expecta- 
 tion is educational, it is a powerful developer. 
 
 St. Matthew is very fond of the word apart. 
 Great strength is conserved in solitude. The " apart- 
 men " of the world: Jesus, John the Baptist, Moses, 
 Daniel, Jeremiah, Dante, Darwin, Hawthorne, all 
 men with a burning passion for retirement. St. 
 Francis, Loyola, St. Teresa, Thomas a Kempis, John 
 Woolman, Fenelon, Rutherford, George Herbert, a 
 long glorious chosen band on whom the Spirit came. 
 Which is it with us — rush or repose? 
 
 To endure slowness is the hardest thing we have 
 to do. This is discipline. It is the most burden- 
 some part of hardness. It is one of the most exact- 
 ing tests of character. When we have to bury aspira- 
 tions which we had prepared for coronation, when we 
 see the failures of ambition, then the finest enthusi- 
 asms will turn cold. 
 
 Every night hundreds of migratory birds, dazzled 
 by the light after darkness, fall victims to the Statue 
 of Liberty standing at the head of New York Bay. 
 That is what is taking place in the world to-day. 
 Blinded by the torch of liberty people are dashing 
 
SOCIETY 147 
 
 themselves to pieces against the light as they come out 
 of darkness. What is needed is a sunrise upon the 
 world. The sunrise of the Cross of Christ. 
 
 There are zeniths in a man's life after which he 
 gradually declines. 
 
 How can Christian style be devoid of beauty? 
 Like the style of the Scriptures, it should show the 
 fringe of gold and fire which borders revelation. 
 
 Our reputations are weeds in the soil of ignorance. 
 Cultivate that soil and they will flower more beauti- 
 fully. 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE. 
 
 Youth is a state of mind, not a thing of years. 
 
 I am old. What does that matter ? I have served 
 my generation. 
 
 It is our sins that age us; our self-denials keep us 
 young. 
 
 Observe the rich tones of a calm old man. 
 
 A man's usefulness is gone only when he ceases to 
 grow. Age is not so much a matter of increasing 
 years as it is of waning enthusiasm. 
 
 Keep renewing your youth. Live amid the influ- 
 ences of a set of stimuli. This will rouse you. 
 
 A man grows old because he does old things. 
 
 Partial paralysis and partial eclipse, these are what 
 make old age so hard to bear. 
 
148 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANOE 
 
 What is a pleasant youth but a happy ignorance ? 
 
 To the youth death is ignored. It is all life and 
 the aspirations of life, and the deep constant call to 
 life, and the beckoning of life. 
 
 An old man spends his days dreaming of a well- 
 spent life. 
 
 Must old age be interpreted to mean that we shall 
 have no more grand work from him? Not at all. 
 Cato mastered the Greek language after he was 
 eighty. It was after eighty that Tennyson wrote his 
 famous poem " Crossing the Bar." He wrote it one 
 fine October morning when he was in his eighty-first 
 year. He showed it to his son, who said, " Father, 
 this is the crown of your life-work." He answered, 
 " It came in a flash." As Tennyson was an infinite 
 painstaker, he worked it over and over and finally 
 gave it to the world as a finished product. 
 
 The old can be as impertinent as the young. Im- 
 pertinence is equally unbearable in both. 
 
 Most young people outgrow their sins. 
 
 In old age accustom yourself to being a nobody. 
 
 Daylight has no mercy on old age and ruins. 
 
V 
 
 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE 
 
 THE WEDDED STATE. 
 
 IN marriage when love is lost duty remains. 
 It is by divine invitation that we enter it. 
 May we enter it in harmony with Thy pur- 
 poses, that Thy will may be done and divine results 
 may be rendered, and immortal souls called into being, 
 and the home built up and filled with the covenant 
 seed, where men shall worship daily at the family 
 altar. 
 
 Some men one hundred per cent, male; some 
 women one hundred per cent, female. 
 
 Love sanctifies its every impulse and proposal and 
 baptizes it with the name of chastity. Without love 
 the same acts and proposals would be unchastity even 
 though according to the reigning laws. 
 
 Marriage should be regarded as a career rather 
 than a livelihood. 
 
 A husband is an occupation. 
 
 A single standard of morals for both men and 
 women pays dividends. 
 
 Plato's Republic was for a specific class, soldier- 
 citizens. Marriage was the means of producing le- 
 gitimate children. That is how it is defined by De- 
 mosthenes. 
 
 149 
 
150 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 Dr. Dixon's voice shook as he declared, "All the 
 honor that comes to me is due to my wife. The quiet 
 little body who has been at my side whispering words 
 of comfort and hope and strength. You have seen 
 very little of her. Her idea of a pastor's wife is to be 
 a leader of nothing, but a helper in everything." 
 
 Greek women were especially trained for marriage. 
 Yet there were here and there ideal matches, an ex- 
 ample, — Odysseus and Penelope, the wife waiting 
 twenty years, wooed in vain by suitors, she wasted 
 her substance and wearied in her life till at last the 
 wanderer returned. Also Hector and Andromache 
 and their babe. 
 
 There are as many unhappy one-love alliances as 
 loveless marriages. 
 
 A noble husband is a friend, a support, another self. 
 
 There is a good deal of wear and tear even in a 
 happy marriage. 
 
 FATHERS AND MOTHERS. 
 
 It seems that once in a while God sends into the 
 world a human soul so beautiful that it is at once a 
 revelation of Himself, and of our own possibilities, 
 i. e., a mother. 
 
 What would the world do without its sweet lulla- 
 bies — ^the songs born of the mother-heart? You 
 might as well ask it to do without its Madonnas of the 
 brush as do without the lullabies of the Harp. They 
 help to make the mother-world. They are great as- 
 sets. 
 
MAEEIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE 151 
 
 Great mothers are the handmaids of the spirit. 
 
 Help parents to leave the mark of their Christian 
 faith upon their sons and daughters. 
 
 A mother who had lost her only child used to sit 
 for hours pressing to her heart Plutarch's divinely 
 tender letter to his wife on the death of his own little 
 one. It was as if she felt her babe again in her arms. 
 
 No man can deceive his children; they take his 
 exact measurement even when others do not. The 
 only way to hold the respect and love of your children 
 is to be frank, simple, and honest. 
 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 A refreshing dash of childhood — this is what we 
 receive at Christmas time. 
 
 The laughter of the children is as the sound of the 
 music of golden bells. 
 
 Maybe Providence knew what it was about when 
 it brought children into life by the cruel path. 
 
 The love of children is the one steady, unswerving 
 passion among people. 
 
 If these bridge-playing, childless people could only 
 observe what joy children bring into life! 
 
 Children do not know that they have opened the 
 great golden door into life. 
 
 Parents send their children to boarding-school 
 when the children most need home. How are chil- 
 dren to make homes if they do not know what good 
 homes are like? 
 
VI 
 
 HISTORY AND TRAVEL 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 THE culture-value of history is of first impor- 
 tance. History is a record of the activities 
 of God Himself. 
 
 We are laden with formulas and dead men's opin- 
 ions, prejudices, and ignorances that ought to have 
 been buried with them. 
 
 New times need new men. 
 
 The advantage of living in the twentieth century is 
 this: we possess the riches of all the centuries. His- 
 tory teaches us our indebtedness to the past. We in- 
 herit a trust. We possess nothing more valuable 
 than history. History broadens human life by bring- 
 ing the life of one into touch with the life of all. 
 History makes us familiar with the shining footprints 
 of God who walks eternal among the ages. History 
 warns, instructs and reveals the issue of moral prin- 
 ciples when they are acted out in life. It lays at our 
 feet the attainments and ideals of those who have 
 gone before. 
 
 Burke said, " You cannot bring an indictment 
 against a nation ; " yet within a generation men began 
 to draw indictments against whole epochs. 
 
 152 
 
HISTOET AND TEAVEL 153 
 
 We go far to look upon the Obelisks, the Egyptian 
 Temples and Assyrian monuments; but we use words 
 every day, every-day words, which Max Miiller has 
 said are more memorable than the most ancient me- 
 morials surviving in the modern or ancient world. 
 The humblest believer in historical Christianity lives 
 under ordinances, and worships through symbols 
 which were hoary with age long before our most an- 
 cient cathedrals were built. 
 
 Gossip? But what is history but gossip about 
 folks who are dead ? 
 
 Beck, in the year 1835, resigned his position in the 
 Patent Office because he had come to the conclusion 
 that the last invention had been made and the Patent 
 Office would be closed. 
 
 America is the last word of modern history, as 
 Greece was the last word of ancient history. 
 
 Americanism is a revival of Hellenism. We are 
 as our ideals. 
 
 Each prophet of Israel stands forth in his own in- 
 dividuality and is the center of a wide and interesting 
 historic circle. Shining singly each one is a brilliant 
 star, but grouped together they are what De Costa 
 calls " a solar system of God." They were great in 
 the ages back when contemporary nations produced 
 men of immortal renown, for example, when Homer 
 was putting the story of his nation into undying verse, 
 and when Lycurgus was framing laws for Sparta, 
 Jonah was preaching the mercy of God to the Gentiles 
 and saving the great city of Nineveh. He was mak- 
 
154 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 ing a history worthy to be written by the pen of God. 
 While Romans were building Rome, Isaiah and 
 Micah and Nahum were building up the Kingdom of 
 Judah in righteousness and thus giving it perpetuity. 
 While ^schylus, the theologian of heathendom, was 
 laying down the system of ethics for the Greeks, Hag- 
 gai and Zechariah were breathing spiritual life into 
 the Jews and giving them nerve power and the heart 
 force to lift their temple from its ashes and make it 
 once more the pride of Jerusalem. While Socrates, 
 the reformer of heathendom, was trying to purify his 
 people and while he was dying a martyr for his faith, 
 in Athens, Malachi was putting the Jewish nation into 
 the furnace that he might burn out of it all the dross 
 and make it even then pure gold. The Hebrew 
 prophets were grand men, and that in the ages which 
 produced grand men. They towered amid conspicu- 
 ous contemporaries. They were magnificent person- 
 alities. Confucius, the sage of China, was admired 
 by one-third of the earth at a time when one of those 
 tidal waves of reason swept the world, when nations 
 were full of unrest. It was just previous to the 
 blossoming of Greece. Pericles was seventeen years 
 old when Confucius died. Themistocles was prepar- 
 ing the way for Pericles; for there was being pre- 
 pared the treasures of Delos, which made Phidias and 
 the Parthenon possible. During the Hfe of Confu- 
 cius lived Leonidas, Miltiades, Cyrus the Great, Cam- 
 byses, Darius, Xerxes. And then quite naturally 
 occurred the Battle of Marathon and Thermopylae. 
 Then lived Buddha, Gautama, Lao-tsze, Ezekiel, Pin- 
 dar, and ^schylus. 
 
 The driving of the Huguenots from France came 
 
mSTOEY AND TEAVEL 155 
 
 near bankrupting the land, and the flight of the Jews 
 and Huguenots and other refugees into England 
 helped largely to make England the clearing-house of 
 the world. Take the Quakers, Puritans, Huguenots 
 from America, and it is no longer the land of the 
 free and the home of the brave. Of seven presidents 
 who presided over the deliberation of the Continental 
 Congress in Philadelphia three were Huguenots, 
 Henry Laurens, John Joy, and Elias Boudinot. 
 
 It has been said a thousand times, but falsely, that 
 the North sold out, and having realized on their 
 slaves, invested in liberty as a better-paying stock. 
 This statement is absolutely untrue. The North 
 emancipated its slaves. It set them free. This was 
 certainly so in the State of New York. No man was 
 permitted to take a slave out of New York without 
 giving a bond for his return, and if he came back 
 without him, unless he proved that the slave had died, 
 he was himself made a criminal. The South printed 
 a black-list of the Abolitionists of New York City. 
 The South undertook to boycott the North. 
 
 Palestine has more history to the square inch than 
 any other country on the face of the globe. Greece 
 with its Athens, Egypt with Its Alexandria, Italy with 
 its Rome, Assyria with its Babylon, are not to be 
 named the same day with Palestine and its Jerusalem. 
 
 Great ages are often brief. The age of Pericles 
 was 431 B. C. to 400 b. C. — thirty years. 
 
 It is believed that the Hindus entered India not 
 later than 3000 b. c. and that part of their literature 
 dates back twenty-four hundred years before the 
 
156 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Christian Era. The " Rig Veda " is one of the oldest 
 and most interesting literary monuments. It is of 
 noble substance and of eloquent form. The thousand 
 and more hymns which it contains were composed 
 during a period of not less than one thousand years 
 and by a great number of poets. It is like the Hebrew 
 Psalter. " Rig " means praise and " Veda " means 
 highest wisdom, i. e., these hymns are the highest 
 knowledge and experience turned into adoration and 
 praise. The Hymns had been handed down from 
 generation to generation, before they were reduced to 
 writing. They were the intellectual treasure of the 
 race. The Vedic Hymns were sung in the valley 
 of the Indus centuries before the Ionic Greeks 
 were reciting the stories of the Trojan War. They 
 express the omniscience of God in these words: 
 " He, Himself, has a thousand eyes." And take this 
 prayer: "Where life is free in the third Heaven of 
 Heavens, where worlds are radiant, there make me 
 immortal." 
 
 Of all the world's romances the British Empire's 
 is the supremest and best. Without question it is the 
 most sublime fact in human affairs. Nothing can 
 equal its history. It not only conquers, but it suc- 
 ceeds in reconciling to its rule. In India seventy-five 
 thousand British hold dominion over three hundred 
 million Easterners of varied nationalities. 
 
 The Greek epic was an evolution. The story of 
 the taking of Troy passed from man to man and from 
 generation to generation. Gradually other stories 
 were incorporated into the original tale: the gods 
 were involved; it was amplified; new incidents were 
 
HISTOEY AND TEAVEL 157 
 
 added; the chief actors were more and more dramat- 
 ically expanded by poet, priest, reciter, as they added 
 touches of imagination or enriched it with some vivid 
 characterization. Gradually all anterior Greek life 
 was drawn upon to expand and embellish it, so that it 
 became a veritable true epitome and compendium of 
 Greek thought about the gods and nature, and them- 
 selves, i. e., a real bible of their faith, their fancy and 
 their history. The story at first had no home but the 
 memory. It grew insensibly as it passed from mind 
 to mind. It was the growth of popular life. The 
 epic is a narrative. It abounds in episodes. 
 
 In the brilliant developments of civilization in the 
 zone of the Mediterranean, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, 
 Italy, we have a world of human life that fascinates. 
 
 That bright spot in history called " The Age of 
 
 Pericles " was simply a lull in the war spirit when 
 
 Greece turned her attentions from war to art and 
 beauty. 
 
 The American Revolution idealized to the English 
 mind was the suppression of rebellion and the main- 
 tenance of British dominion ; to the American mind it 
 was the defense of liberty, resistance to tyranny, and 
 self-sacrifice on the altar of the rights of man. 
 
 The Greek race knew two splendid creative periods. 
 The first was a period of great length and wonderful 
 achievement, wonderful for its manifoldness and 
 abundance and its permanent worth to mankind. 
 This period extended from Homer to Alexander the 
 Great, 776 b. c. to 300 b. c. In this period the myth- 
 
158 A BOOK OF EBMBMBEANCE 
 
 ology, the poetry, sculpture, painting and political in- 
 stitutions, the arts (the richest heritage of mankind 
 from the past) were brought to their consummate de- 
 velopment in Greece. The second period was not so 
 wonderful for the variety and abundance of its prod- 
 ucts, but its depths are such as have never been fully 
 explored. It was in this period that Christianity was 
 given to the world, Christian truth. Christian doc- 
 trine, the Christian conception of God, and the uni- 
 verse, the doctrine of the Logos and the divine incar- 
 nation. In minds nurtured and quickened by Hel- 
 lenic thought the Christian concepts took shape and 
 came to birth. The writings of the Apostles and the 
 Apostolic fathers appeared on soil fertilized by Hel- 
 lenic ideas. This second period, roughly speaking, 
 covered some three centuries on each side of the birth 
 of Christ. 
 
 There are inexperienced races just as there are in- 
 experienced individuals. 
 
 Voltaire in the eighteenth century labored for the 
 emancipation of the intellect from ecclesiasticism and 
 dogma. What Voltaire and Rousseau planned the 
 French Revolution carried into effect. It was the 
 execution of their wills. From Voltaire came the 
 wrath of the Revolution, from Rousseau the enthu- 
 siasm. The Revolution was in reality quite as much 
 of a religious as of a political nature. From one 
 standpoint, it was the result of the labors of the great 
 free-thinking philosophers of the eighteenth century. 
 We owe it freedom from prejudice, liberty of con- 
 science and religious toleration. It is certainly not to 
 the Church that we owe these. A whole host of lib- 
 
HISTOEY AND TEAVEL 159 
 
 eral thinkers of different professions, men of charac- 
 ter and talent, took part. The Church rallied all its 
 forces for a desperate struggle and defeat. The 
 Revolution progressed, first hesitatingly, then threat- 
 eningly, then irresistibly, and finally in the intoxica- 
 tion of victory. A handful of men, most of them 
 exiled or in disgrace, succeeded under perfectly auto- 
 cratic rule in winning over to their opinions the ablest 
 men of the day. Thus the new truth, which was 
 bom in low estate, but was revered even in its cradle 
 by mighty kings, by Frederick of Prussia, Joseph of 
 Austria and Catherine of Russia, became the great 
 power among the rising generation. Human reason 
 had risen and freed itself with athletic strength. 
 Where formerly they had believed in miracles, they 
 now discovered a law. Never before was there such 
 inquiry and such illumination. 
 
 Protestantism is the result of the supremacy of the 
 people. 
 
 Guizot, in the " History of Civilization," presents 
 three tests of a civilized people; — 1. They revere their 
 pledges and honor. 2. They reverence and pursue 
 the beautiful in painting, architecture, and literature. 
 3. They exhibit sympathy in reform towards the poor, 
 the weak and the unfortunate. 
 
 Not only do authors pass away, but entire schools 
 decline and disappear. There is an obsolete litera- 
 ture. 
 
 I doubt If the verdict of generations upon a hook 
 ever errs substantially. 
 
160 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 In Egypt there had been established an elaborate 
 and splendid empire. It had strength, coherence, 
 wealth, power, a vigorous government, dominant and 
 exclusive castes of nobles and priests and a proletariat 
 of slaves. Its cities, temples and monuments are still, 
 in their ruins, the admiration of engineers and the 
 despair of architects. Yes, there was the oppression 
 of the millions, the habits of the higher classes were 
 elaborately luxurious. Original intellectual concep- 
 tions inspired its public buildings. How grand their 
 tombs. The pictured scenes on their sides exhibit 
 their indulgence. The inscriptions and paintings in 
 the tombs near Thebes make it perfectly clear that the 
 Egyptians looked forward to a future state, to the 
 judgment bar of Osiris, where they would each one 
 stand and give account of actions. That belief exer- 
 cised a tremendous influence upon human conduct. 
 
 Baltimore produced three poems: 
 1. The Star-Spangled Banner. 
 3. The Raven. 
 3. Maryland, My Maryland. 
 
 The French Romantic School may be called with- 
 out exaggeration, the greatest literary school of the 
 nineteenth century. Nodier, De Vigny, Hugo, De 
 Musset, Georges Sand, Balzac, Beyle, Merimee, Gau- 
 tier, Sainte-Beuve, Dumas. 
 
 TRAVEL. 
 
 The value of travel: At Rome I meet Michael An- 
 gelo; at Stratford, Shakespeare; at Florence, in St. 
 Mark's, Savonarola; at Amsterdam, Rembrandt; at 
 Weimar, Goethe. 
 
HISTOEY AND TEAVEL 161 
 
 There is no use in taking tO' China a lamp that will 
 not burn in America. 
 
 Switzerland is the one place in the world which is 
 never false to old impressions when you come back to 
 it. It pays a man to come often. 
 
 The illogical streets of Boston have their lessons. 
 
VII 
 
 ART 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 IT was one of these mental pictures which he 
 could not make over, dim, much less obliterate. 
 It was the stroke of a Master — one of God's 
 strokes. 
 
 God is beauty in the original. Remember Ros- 
 setti's description of the King's daughter: 
 
 " Alight with Cherubim ; 
 Afire with Seraphim." 
 
 Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. 
 
 Beauty is power. Beauty is educational. Beauty 
 is inspirational. You cannot overstate the power of 
 beauty in the realm of truth. A beautiful idea is like 
 the shuttle in the loom which carries the thread of 
 gold and crimson. It shoots to and fro, backwards 
 and forwards through every part of a man's person- 
 ality, until he is penetrated and interpenetrated with 
 the beauty of the idea itself. 
 
 God makes no half joints. But an eye without 
 beauty would be a half joint. 
 
 Fourteen people built Athens. It was a dream in 
 marble, the despair of builders since Pericles. 
 
 162 
 
AET 163 
 
 A box of colors is not a picture, but it is essential 
 to a picture. 
 
 A friend asked me once: "Is it possible to make 
 the sunbeam more beautiful?" I innocently an- 
 swered: " No. The sunbeam is God's finished work." 
 I thought that was conclusive. My friend took me to 
 a triangular prism, and ran a sunbeam through it; lo, 
 in an instant, it sparkled out into all the beauties of 
 the rainbow. It entered the crystal one miracle and 
 it came out of the crystal seven other miracles. It is 
 possible to increase the beauty of the sunbeams seven- 
 fold. A fine Christian personality is one of God's 
 prisms. Be such a prism and you will be a sevenfold 
 power for good. In this way you can give the truth 
 a sevenfold power among men. Love, courage, 
 purity, optimism, sympathy, conscientiousness, and 
 self-sacrifice, these are the beauties of the Gospel 
 rainbow and they are the sevenfold colors of the 
 Divine Light. 
 
 The Gospel is in great pictures, the masterpieces of 
 the immortal painters. Beauty is the handmaid of 
 religion. There are the jewelled words of the Apoca- 
 lypse; the Book of Psalms is an art gallery, one Psalm 
 is a thunder-storm, another is a quiet pastoral, an- 
 other is a Righi view, and another is a picture of the 
 Holy City all alive with the gathered tribes of God. 
 
 A beautiful picture is a power, whether a man paint 
 with words, or with pigments, or construct a mosaic 
 out of brilliant stones. The world pictures of Jesus 
 Christ are in evidence here. They are the mightiest 
 forces, or among the mightiest forces at work in the 
 
164 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 human world to-day. Take the pictorial windows in 
 Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn. 
 Each window is a grand thought, it is a sublime doc- 
 trine, it is a magnificent ideal. They marry beauty to 
 truth. They are a divine plus. They are pictured 
 facts, pictured scenes, pictured doctrines, pictured 
 promises, pictured gospels fascinatingly set forth by 
 the alphabet of art. 
 
 The mission of art is to idealize beauty. Beauty 
 finds its supreme sphere in the service of religion. 
 It is right that art should be made a gospel student. 
 It is right to appeal to the eye. It is right to make 
 great truths flash in scarlet and purple and green and 
 gold. There is no organ which God Himself so hon- 
 ors, or so appeals to as the human eye. The flash of 
 gems, the crimson of the morning, the glow of the 
 sunset, the many-hued flowers, the dazzling plumage 
 of birds, the corruscation of insect dyes, the rainbow 
 on the background of the black storm, the pearly dew, 
 are all tributes to the eye. 
 
 Of Rossetti's pictures the distinguishing traits are, 
 a wondrous mastery of color, dramatic power and 
 passion, and a weird mysticism. He excelled in the 
 study of physical beauty. He was unattached to any 
 particular creed or church, yet he always felt the 
 beautiful piety of his mother. 
 
 Fra Angelico's creed was a creed as joyous as the 
 Angel's song at Bethlehem, and as bright as a sunrise 
 over the Mount of Transfiguration. In giving ex- 
 pression to it, he invokes all the resources of color and 
 all the suggestions of music. To him religion is not 
 a bond of hard obedience ; it is a nigh privilege. 
 
AET 165 
 
 The mission of art is to idealize beauty. Beauty 
 finds its supreme sphere in the service of rcHgion. 
 
 Raphael got his whole religion into art. He talked 
 by and through symbols. 
 
 What is it in the soul that turns out to meet beauty, 
 whether of line, or of tone, of color, or of form, of 
 motion, or of harmony? 
 
 Sandro Botticelli, the painter, made sensuality 
 beautiful, ugliness seductive, and the sin-stained soul 
 attractive. 
 
 "The Nativity": Sir Edward Burne-Jones. He 
 has achieved a splendid and enduring fame. His 
 work bids fair to be the glory of England as that of 
 Raphael is the permanent treasure of Italy. The 
 Tate Gallery of London possesses many of his noblest 
 creations. Some of his works of note: "Love 
 Among the Ruins," " Fortune's Wheel," " King 
 Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," and " The Resur- 
 rection," and a window in St. Philip's Church, Bir- 
 mingham. 
 
 'b^ 
 
 Murillo: "The Holy Family." The sanctity of 
 human love. Christ is found related to the happiness 
 and progress of the human race. His inspirations 
 are the chief causes of blessing. He rises above the 
 planes of humanity like the Matterhorn among the 
 Alps. He has modified or molded all the institutions 
 of men. He is no more at home in the Church than 
 in the State, in the cathedral than in the family. The 
 vital forces of civilization are born of Him. Art, 
 literature, oratory, laws, society, the family, the state. 
 
166 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 have all received from Him their infinite inspirations. 
 At the consummation of history, they will all unite in 
 placing on His head the many crowns. 
 
 The preeminent pictures in all the European gal- 
 leries are variations on the life of our Lord. Are we 
 in Dresden? It is the Sistine Madonna. In Flor- 
 ence? It is the Madonna della Sedia. In London? 
 It is the Holy Family. In Rome? It is the Trans- 
 figuration. In Milan? It is the Last Supper. In 
 Antwerp? It is the Descent from the Cross. In 
 Madrid? It is the Ascension. In Paris? It is the 
 Immaculate Conception. 
 
 Renouf in " The Pilot " indicates the message and 
 ministry of the sea and the vastness of the ocean and 
 the variety of its moods. Fully three-quarters of the 
 surface of the earth is water. The ocean could swal- 
 low the continents and leave not a vestige to be seen. 
 The oceans are the inexhaustible fountains of mois- 
 ture. Clouds and showers are pumped up from the 
 ocean by the sun. The rivers do not fill the ocean, 
 the ocean fills the rivers. Our life depends on water. 
 The ocean is the storehouse of the world's power. 
 What excavated the canyons of the Yellowstone and 
 Colorado ? 
 
 George Frederick Watts, the artist of " The Super- 
 natural Hope," is very masculine. He views life on 
 a large scale. Witness his " Sir Galahad." He is the 
 Browning among the artists, just as Burne-Jones is 
 the Tennyson. He has Browning's spiritual vision, 
 his optimism, his strong faith, his forward look. 
 " Sir Galahad " is the spotless knight of Arthur's 
 
AET 167 
 
 Round Table and the only one of the knights to 
 whom was given the vision of the Holy Grail. The 
 picture is in Eton College, England. No better ser- 
 mon could be preached to the boys. The picture sug- 
 gests the glory of goodness. 
 
 The artist Holman Hunt approaches his canvas 
 with the same spirit which fills a prophet about to de- 
 liver his message. With him his art is a medium for 
 the expression of truth. 
 
 Turner owes much of his fame to the praise of 
 Ruskin. He painted "The Old Temeraire," Nel- 
 son's famous warship, being towed to her resting- 
 place after all the storms of battle. 
 
 " The Transfiguration " hangs in the Gallery of 
 the Vatican. It contains Raphael's last message. He 
 died while the colors of the picture were still wet. 
 Still incomplete, the painting hung over his couch 
 while he was lying in state. 
 
 Among the master artists the two greatest, Michael 
 Angelo and Raphael, according to the standard of 
 their age, were men of lovely character. 
 
 The effete models of Greece and Rome have been 
 largely supplanted by the sublime ideals of perfect 
 manhood and a redeemed society. The grandest 
 buildings are Christian temples, St. Peter's, St. 
 Paul's, Milan, and Cologne, San Marco in Venice, the 
 Duomo in Florence, the Madeleine in Paris, and St. 
 Stephen's in Vienna. 
 
 Corot and Turner, the greatest landscape painters. 
 
168 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 were both born in the city, Corot in Paris, Turner in 
 London. Turner made over a million dollars by his 
 work. Corot looked for beauty, and he found it. 
 
 Leonardo was the metaphysician among the great 
 painters of the Renaissance. 
 
 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Art is language. It stands for ideals. Symbols 
 get their intrinsic worth from their associations. 
 Symbols have a meaning. They talk. What is a 
 wedding ring? A few pennyweights of gold! Yet 
 that little circle talks. A king's crown is but a rim 
 of gold, yet it signifies law, authority, obedience, the 
 State, sovereignty. The sacred robes mean the priest, 
 the altar, the Church. 
 
 The early Puritans turned away from Art because 
 it embalmed corruption, it enshrined lies. " When 
 the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock the trees were 
 leafless except the pine. That stood green and hope- 
 ful even in winter. That tree they marked. They 
 chose it for their banner. It yet stands upon the seal 
 of Massachusetts. No symbol in heaven or earth 
 was half so fit. What other tree can so well stand 
 for the principles of Liberty? It grows without cul- 
 ture, and it flourishes on soil that would starve an- 
 other tree. Sands and rocks are quite alike to it. 
 Every root is an engineer. The wood rises straight 
 up to God. It spreads out its branches to the North, 
 the South, the East, the West alike and spires up in 
 symmetry like a pinnacle of a cathedral. It defies 
 the storm, is not afraid of heat or cold. It is grateful 
 to culture, but thrives bravely even in neglect. It 
 
AET 169 
 
 adorns the habitation of men, but is just as much the 
 glory of the wilderness. When all other trees have 
 yielded to the frost, the evergreen pine lets go not a 
 leaf, but holds up its plumed head like a warrior and 
 whoops and shouts to the winds all winter long. Is 
 not that the tree of Liberty? The Pilgrims chose it 
 and placed it on their banner. All hail to the Pil- 
 grims' pine, the tree of Liberty." 
 
 Corot: the joy of light. 
 Ruskin: the joy of beauty and sublimity. 
 Emerson: the joy of the epigrammatic. 
 Lowell: the joy of dialectics. 
 Whittier: the joy of peace and quietness. 
 John: the joy of love. 
 Balzac: the joy of logic. 
 Hugh McMillen: the joy of nature. 
 Isaiah: the joy of vision. 
 Zola: the joy of mal-odor. 
 Browning: the joy of the profound. 
 Tennyson: the joy of turning chaos into cosmos. 
 Carlyle and Wendell Phillips: the joy of philippic. 
 Chalmers: the joy of thunder and lightning. 
 Demosthenes: the joy of eloquence. 
 Newman: the joy of mysticism. 
 De Maupassant, Gautier, Flaubert: the joy of the 
 sensual. 
 
 Phillips Brooks: the joy of rapture for humanity. 
 Robert Collyer: the joy of the monosyllabic. 
 J. G. Holland: the joy of commonsense. 
 Plutarch: the joy of the biographical. 
 Defoe: the joy of the romantic. 
 Cervantes: the joy of puff and bombast. 
 Hodge: the joy of theology. 
 
170 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEAl^CE 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi: the joy of sacrifice. 
 Fra Angelico; the joy of the angeUc. 
 W. L. Watkinson: the joy of the pictorial. 
 Edward Everett: the joy of faith. 
 Josephus: the joy of exaggeration. 
 Napoleon: the joy of ambition. 
 Pascal: the joy of perfection. 
 
 Ulysses and Orpheus sailed by " The Isle of the 
 Sirens." Ulysses filled his ears with wax and bound 
 himself to the mast with knotted thongs. Orpheus 
 brought out his lyre; it made better music than did 
 the sirens, and thus enchanted his crew, and they 
 passed safely and victoriously and at peace. Religion 
 is the obedience of delight, not the obedience of 
 slavishness. 
 
 Ishmael, the unconventional man, is described in 
 scripture under the simile of " The Wild Ass." In 
 colloquial English that would be a term of contempt, 
 in literary Hebrew it is a term of admiration. The 
 idea is that of impetuous brilliancy. It depicts a man 
 of noble impulses unable to restrain them, rushing to 
 realize his goal with magnetic but unreasoning speed. 
 
 The ancients said of the Hebrew High Priest when 
 he went into the Holy of Holies of the Temple, " He 
 was robed with creation." The blue and the purple 
 and the scarlet and the fine-twined linen, and the 
 flashing stones, and the gold of mitre and breastplate 
 were all speaking symbols. The material riches and 
 things that were creation's best, its glories and its 
 symbols, they were the expressions of the highest 
 known spiritualities in the kingdom of truth. 
 
AET 171 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 Songs and Love are divinely married. 
 
 Great songs are seeds; they grow human lives. 
 Listen to the singing of the sacramental hosts of 
 God's elect as their holy songs reverberate through- 
 out the ages. 
 
 The song has its climax. 
 
 Music is a matter of soul ; and not of sound. 
 
 All musical instruments are made one by the mu- 
 sical score; but yet each instrument retains its own 
 destined individuality. 
 
 Music enriches, fertilizes, and consoles life, endows 
 us with intuitive knowledge, the power of admiration, 
 love for the noblest, tender pity for the weak and 
 erring, and a sympathetic imagination. 
 
 Music is love in search of a word. 
 
 The classic birds are the thrush, the lark, and the 
 nightingale. 
 
 Under a musical presentation threadbare thoughts 
 receive a renewed freshness, and words expand to a 
 fullness from which they never recede. 
 
 What shall not the orchestration of mankind finally 
 produce ! 
 
 The musical octave with its tones and half-tones 
 and quarter-tones and its multifold keys is like the 
 Niagara River. Do you know to the utmost the 
 
172 A BOOK OP EEMBMBEANCE 
 
 power of the Niagara River to create grandeur and 
 beauty? We all admire the great cataract of that 
 river. But one cataract does not exhaust its possi- 
 bilities. Give the Niagara River rocks and declivities 
 and channels through which to flow and over which 
 to dash ; give it heights to leap from, and it will give 
 you cascades and cataracts and white foam and tinted 
 spray and flashing rainbows ad infinitum. Give the 
 octave great themes to voice, and great personalities 
 to handle its notes, and great souls to breathe them- 
 selves through its notes, multiply the octave, give it 
 organs and harps and orchestras, and give it conse- 
 crated voices and choirs and congregations of holy 
 men and women; give it Bachs, Beethovens, and 
 Handels, give it the multitudinous thousands that 
 crowd the Crystal Palace at the Handel Festivals, and 
 it will give and regive and reduplicate and equal all 
 the musical magnificence of the past, and keep the 
 world vibrating forever v^ith Hallelujah Choruses. 
 
 There are things that come more naturally 
 through song than through any other channel. Deep 
 things find expression best in song. Great is the 
 power of song. If the Hebrews had taken down their 
 harps from the willow trees of Babylon, and sung the 
 Lord's songs in that foreign land, it would have been 
 the very best thing they could have done. They suf- 
 fered by not doing so. Sing Christianity as well as 
 preach it. Oh, for a faith that can sing all the songs 
 of the Church. 
 
 An ecstasy is something that cannot be put into 
 words. Music comes the nearest to expressing it. It 
 is something to be felt and surrendered to. 
 
AET 173 
 
 What Shakespeare was to literature ; Rembrandt to 
 portrait painting; Michael Angelo to sculpture; John 
 Sebastian Bach was to organ music. The organ 
 reached perfection at the hands of Bach. 
 
 It is said that one of the loveliest melodies in one 
 of Beethoven's compositions, the Pastoral Sym- 
 phony, I think, was built up out of a rude rustic 
 rhythm that was wafted one night to the great com- 
 poser's ears as he lay in bed in a country inn. A pass- 
 ing wayfarer of the night was humming to himself a 
 Tew notes of a folk song as he went on his home- 
 ward path. The rhythm struck the composer. He 
 put something down in his note-book. He bent his 
 mind over it, with laborious patience which was char- 
 acteristic of his genius. He turned it one way and 
 another. He shot it through and through with new 
 harmonies and strange discords. He varied it in a 
 hundred different ways until the old country tune be- 
 came glorified into something altogether wonderful. 
 It was the old tune, yet infinitely and gloriously new. 
 The dull chrysalis had become a beautiful butterfly. 
 It was all changed, and yet one knew it to be the same 
 creation in spite of the change. All had been made 
 new by the intermingling with it of the melodies of 
 the master. 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 If you are going to please everybody, you must put 
 on the boards a universal pleasure to make the ap- 
 peal to the audience. This flings you back inevitably 
 to the instinct of sex as an avenue to all hearts, other- 
 wise you will be greeted with yawns. 
 
174 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Ibsen invented the drama of catastrophe. He is 
 not dazzled by or enamored of weahh. His method 
 is Socratic, " Let us talk it over." Ibsen is the enemy 
 of all convention; he takes nothing for granted. No 
 axiom is so universally received as to be safe from 
 his profane analysis. 
 
 Edwin Booth personated twenty-five chief charac- 
 ters in dramatic literature. He excelled especially in 
 Hamlet and King Lear. It was a great capacity to 
 assume and sustain such diversified and contrasted 
 personalities. He embodied the creations of the 
 genius in literature. He suffused them all with his 
 personal charm. Taking Richelieu, Hamlet, Lear, 
 lago, and Bertuccio together, and the observer has a 
 complete exemplification of Booth and of his style 
 and method. He had powerful eyes, a mobile face, a 
 flexible, sonorous voice, and the intense concentra- 
 tion of eloquent repose. 
 
 "The Fool's Revenge" by Tom Taylor, which 
 Booth played, is a rebuke of the wickedness of human 
 quest for revenge. The lesson of it is the ancient 
 Bible lesson that vengeance is an attribute of God. 
 
 The play of " Brutus " by John Howard Payne is 
 valuable for the strong way it inculcates the awful 
 holiness of chastity, the dignity of honor, and the 
 value of freedom. 
 
 The theatre is a curious human institution, a place 
 to introduce imaginary people and imaginary life. 
 Its object to delight the public, cheer, and instruct. 
 The lack of a proper theatre is a great privation. It 
 
AET 175 
 
 gathers and garners the intellectual harvests of the 
 age. It is the drama that makes the theatres and not 
 the theatre that makes the drama. Stage figures are 
 meant to show forth and expose real life figures. 
 
 Brieux says: " I wish through the theatre not only 
 to make people think, to modify habits and facts, but 
 still more to bring about laws which are desirable." 
 Brieux was a great reader. He spent his time with 
 the masterpieces, preferably the classics. 
 
 No one can read a play of August Strindberg 
 (Swedish) without receiving an intellectual jolt. 
 He is a great human. 
 
 In the translation French plays may lose much of 
 their wit and thought; but they lose nothing of their 
 vulgarity. 
 
 Aristophanes, the caricaturist, used public ridicule 
 as a means of grace. Of his forty plays, we have only 
 eleven now. In one of these a duel in the choicest 
 Billingsgate of Athens takes place. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's famous sentence on the death of 
 Garrick. It embalms the memory of David Garrick 
 in a sentence which can die only with the English 
 language. " I am disappointed by that stroke of 
 death which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and 
 impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure." 
 
 Brieux faces life with a drama, and by his drama 
 he unflinchingly and conscientiously solves great 
 problems and enforces great duties. He creates 
 within you a disquieting sense that you are involved 
 
176 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 in the evils that he unmasks and that you owe a duty 
 to civiHzation. He is a reformer. He indicts na- 
 tions, epochs, yes, even human nature itself. His 
 blows fall on human noses for the good of human 
 souls. 
 
 " Pelleas and Melisande " by Maurice Maeterlink. 
 With Maeterlink the presence of death is always lurk- 
 ing near. To Maeterlink and Goethe and Carlyle si- 
 lence is golden. He is a symbolist. He is the Belgian 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 In his play " Leonarda " (1879) Bjornson treats 
 the subject of the emancipation of the conscience 
 from the conventional bonds of traditional religion. 
 Ibsen deals with the same theme in " Rosmersholm." 
 
 Sir J. M. Barrie's " What Every Woman Knows." 
 A genuine Scotch play. It shows what a fine wife is 
 to a man, and how deftly and skillfully she handles 
 him. He thinks he is handling himself. This wife 
 puts into his parliamentary addresses the neat little 
 touches which give a speech vitality, interest, fresh- 
 ness, and individuality. Mr. John Shand falls in love 
 with another woman and gives her credit for being 
 his inspiration. The wife knows she is not and so 
 arranges it that they are together while he attempts 
 to write the great speech of his life. He fails and 
 the other woman appears in her true weakness. He 
 says to his wife: "I seem to have lost my neat way 
 of saying things." She has to do for him what she 
 has always done and the speech comes out all right. 
 There is one instance she touches up: "Gentlemen, 
 the Opposition are calling you to vote for them and 
 the flowing tide, but I solemnly warn you to beware 
 
AET 177 
 
 that the 'flowing tide does not engulf you." She 
 makes it read, " Gentlemen, the Opposition are call- 
 ing you to vote for them and the flowing tide, but I 
 ask you cheerfully to vote for us and dam the flowing 
 tide." 
 
VIII 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 RELIGION In its root idea is admiration. Re- 
 ligion robbed of emotion is not the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 God is a working hypothesis. The universe is a 
 thought, an ordered whole, a moral system; there 
 must be a thinker, a designer, a lawgiver, an upholder, 
 a ruler. 
 
 I feel like Socrates at the Fair of Athens, a secret 
 joy to think of the number of things I do not want. 
 
 Problems as old as life itself, — problems of love, 
 friendship, passion, ambition, office, the getting and 
 the use of money. 
 
 There are a great many things that make us ques- 
 tion the moral government of the universe. 
 
 Does God make the jests we see about us — the 
 heartless jests? 
 
 ^schylus and Ezekiel lived in the same century. 
 The Greek stood for " Sweet Reasonableness." The 
 Hebrew stood for " Sweet Righteousness." 
 
 178 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 179 
 
 What is a radical ? One who goes to the roots of a 
 subject, who follows premise to conclusion. The ex- 
 tremist is a radical. 
 
 Karl Marx said of Stuart Mill that his eminence 
 was due to the flatness of the surrounding country. I 
 hate to think that Shakespeare has lasted three hun- 
 dred years, or that Plato, more than two thousand 
 years old, is still ahead of our voters. 
 
 With reference to God's responsibility for the 
 horrors of life Henri Beyle writes: " What excuses 
 God is that He does not exist." He was a passionate 
 atheist, acknowledging no mainspring of action but 
 self-interest. 
 
 We can tell what life does; but we cannot tell what 
 life is. We can tell the essential conditions of life. 
 
 LITERARY ART. 
 
 The uncommon beauty and marvellous English of 
 King James' version of the Bible, — that is its power. 
 
 To make one fine phrase is to create a circle of 
 beauty. A fine phrase makes the difference between 
 platitude and the play of genius. The fascination of 
 style is not to be belittled. 
 
 Some men in their writing shout themselves hoarse 
 by the use of italics and small caps. 
 
 The New Testament in the world of literature is a 
 miracle of language; just as in the world of religion 
 it is a miracle of divine revelation. 
 
180 A BOOK OP EBMEMBEANCE 
 
 Literature is a means whereby a man may vitalize 
 his thinking. By it one may get the power of self- 
 expression. The book is a purifying power. Purify 
 your pen. Truth passing through a pen is like the 
 sunbeam passing through a prism; it comes forth 
 transfigured. 
 
 The master of the short-story, who outclasses all 
 writers, is Guy de Maupassant who received this law 
 from his teacher Flaubert: "Whatever be the thing 
 one wishes to say, there is only one phrase to express 
 it ; only one verb to animate it ; and only one adjective 
 to qualify it. One must seek and seek until one finds 
 this phrase, this verb, this adjective; and one must 
 never be content with less, never be satisfied with 
 substitutes ! " It was by slow pain that Charles Lamb 
 brought out his undying phrase, " He is a Scotch- 
 Greek; half thistle and half flower; half nettle and 
 half flower." 
 
 Literature, a help to the religious life, is bread for 
 the hungry. 
 
 The most perfect passage of sarcasm in literature 
 is Isaiah 44. The most perfect passage of denuncia- 
 tion in literature is Matthew S3. In both of these in- 
 stances the tongue is a fiery lash. 
 
 Literature is an aid to the sermon. It contributes 
 variety, beauty, life, and power. 
 
 The masters of literature are the leaders of man- 
 kind. Literature is a bond of union between preacher 
 and his people, a positive personal exhilaration, dis- 
 cipline, diversion, a pointer and index of the spirit of 
 the age and at the same time fine companionship. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 181 
 
 The value of literature in the construction of a ser- 
 mon for creating an interest in the truth: 
 
 1. For beautifying the expression of the truth. 
 
 2. For giving vitality of form and method in ex- 
 pressing the truth. 
 
 3. For quoting the great and world-known au- 
 thorities in the establishment of the truth. 
 
 4. For illustration and illumination of the truth. 
 
 5. For vitalizing the truth. 
 
 6. For setting forth the truth by means of con- 
 trasts and parallels. 
 
 7. For quickening the religious spirit. 
 
 " Truth in closest words shall fail, 
 When truth embodied in a tale. 
 Shall enter in at lowly doors." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 Literature to the Minister: 
 (1) It is a house of refreshing and of refuge. 
 (3) It trains the mind for the appreciation of the 
 best. 
 
 (3) It quickens the senses for the best expressions. 
 
 (4) It is a great enrichment. 
 
 There is one glory of Addison, and another glory 
 of Carlyle, and another glory of Whitman, and an- 
 other glory of Tennyson. 
 
 Versed in Wordsworth, Milton, Shakespeare, 
 Browning, Tennyson, Whittier, Longfellow, Arnold, 
 a man will be finely equipped for preaching to his 
 fellowmen. 
 
 There is no democracy like that of literature. It 
 flings wide open all doors. It admits to the presence 
 
182 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANOE 
 
 of the kings of thought. You meet Socrates and 
 Plato. In it we have made over to us the best of 
 human nature. 
 
 The pen of Thomas Paine made the sword of 
 George Washington possible. 
 
 Literature is one of the high arts using words for 
 colors. 
 
 The mission of literature: 
 
 (a) The conception, embodiment and interpreta- 
 tion of some great idea or principle. 
 
 (b) The correct interpretation of the spirit of the 
 age. 
 
 (c) The interpretation of human nature to itself 
 and to the world. 
 
 (d) The presentation and enforcement of high 
 ideals. 
 
 Literary style waits on worshipful toil. 
 
 The simple fact that our language contains one 
 hundred thousand words intimates that there are 
 many colors of thought, many shades of opinion and 
 many tints of emotion. It is a wonderful pleasure to 
 read along with a great author, like Lamartine and 
 Shakespeare, and mark the coming and going of 
 words, their differences and their harmonies. The 
 tints of the autumn forests, the many shades which 
 pass over the clouds at sunset are equalled in number 
 and delicacy by the shades of significance which are 
 spread before us by the great authors through the 
 richness of speech. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AKD LITEEATUEE 183 
 
 The anatomy of satire. It is the humor that 
 stings. It is laughter that slays. In Ibsen it is vit- 
 riol, in Swift fury, in Voltaire a bomb. Juvenal, a 
 contemporary of Christ, was a satirist, so was Cer- 
 vantes, Don Quixote, and Moliere, and Swift. 
 
 A great French writer says that " style is the man." 
 Gibbon, Carlyle, Macaulay, Renan, Newman, Arnold, 
 all have their own peculiar style. You would know 
 their writing anywhere. 
 
 You cannot communicate imagination to a man. 
 The communicable power is that of technique. It is 
 this that painters, writers, speakers, architects, musi- 
 cians, sculptors can learn. 
 
 The way to learn to write is to write. 
 
 Write, prune, recast, polish, elaborate, simplify, 
 weigh each phrase, destroy the rubbish, burn. 
 
 Accustom yourself to phrasing thoughrs in your 
 mind without writing them down. 
 
 Take great pains in trying to express the common- 
 place. 
 
 Observe the cyclone-swept pages of Carlyle, the 
 mysteriousness of Kipling, the realism of Hardy. 
 
 An epigram is a thought packed for quick trans- 
 portation. It looks spontaneous. It gives crispness 
 and vigor to style. The Greeks used the word epi- 
 gram originally to signify a verse inscribed on a 
 tomb. The more it has of the air of instantaneous, 
 happy inspiration, the more effective it is. 
 
184 A BOOK OP EBMEMBEANOE 
 
 Max Nordau whimsically remarks, in " Degener- 
 acy " : " In the highly significant Biblical legend even 
 Balaam's ass acquired speech when he had something 
 definite to say." 
 
 Observe the superb series of interrogations in Job! 
 " Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades, 
 or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth 
 Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide 
 Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordi- 
 nances of Heaven? " 
 
 The reward of the student of literature is great, 
 but his labor also is great. 
 
 James Russell Lowell says: "The art of writing 
 consists largely in knowing what to leave in the ink 
 pot." 
 
 Sainte-Beuve excels in the critical interpretation of 
 the personality of notable women. 
 
 Moore plays with his theme and caresses it. 
 Byron tears his theme to pieces and turns from it in 
 disgust. 
 
 STUDY. 
 
 To get back to first things relative to the sacra- 
 ments of the New Testament, which have been well- 
 nigh buried in the rubbish of the centuries, it is neces- 
 sary to set before our thought the estimation in which 
 they have been held, to see them in their pristine esti- 
 mation and original simplicity. To do this we have 
 to familiarize ourselves with history. This opens a 
 whole world for study, and puts us as students in 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITBEATUEE 185 
 
 touch with all the ages and all the branches of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 We must gather for ourselves material which we 
 can use in making the sacraments of the New Testa- 
 ment interesting and attractive, and powerful in our 
 lives. 
 
 Emotion on ice — that is the popular style of 
 scholars. 
 
 The archeological spade belongs as much to the pul- 
 pit and the Bible classrooms as it does to the univer- 
 sity. It is its mission to build up the fortifications of 
 the Bible. 
 
 To be taught — educated — a man needs to meet a 
 sufficient number of men who believe differently 
 from him. 
 
 I regard the study of Greek as an invaluable train- 
 ing in accuracy, subtlety of thought, and sense of 
 form. 
 
 The sciences, geology, astronomy, history, teach us 
 to think in eeons and in races, instead of in years and 
 as individuals. 
 
 READING. 
 
 Reading broadens our sympathies and enlarges our 
 charities; our whole being is elevated and our hori- 
 zon widened by fellowship with great men. 
 
 The primary aim of literary reading is informa- 
 tion or enlightenment. Literary equipment; the 
 
186 A book: OP EEMBMBEANCE 
 
 library is an educational agency. It is the treasury 
 of information for the enquiring mind. A second 
 aim is culture, the education of the taste. The beau- 
 tiful is studied for its own sake. A third aim is dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 " Some books are to be chewed and digested." 
 Their reading is to be studious. 
 
 Literature is an introduction to society, a personal 
 exhilaration, a diversion, a discipline, an index of the 
 spirit of the age. The masters in literature are fine 
 company. 
 
 " What is your favorite book ? " asked Ralph W. 
 Emerson of George Eliot. The answer was " Ros- 
 seau's Confessions." " So it is mine," said Emerson. 
 Mr. Browning nibbled at the same cheese. The be- 
 lief now is that Rousseau's " Confessions " are con- 
 structive truth as differentiated from fact. His book 
 is a philosophical study of hopes, desires, aspirations, 
 and hesitations flavored with regret. He wrote a 
 work which has influenced the world after his death. 
 He was a Swiss and a native of Geneva. Napoleon 
 said: " Had there been no Rousseau there would have 
 been no revolution." Morot, Mirabeau, and Robes- 
 pierre got their arguments direct from Rousseau. 
 His " Social Contract " inspired Paine to write his 
 pamphlet " Common Sense," an influence that helped 
 to bring about the American Revolution. Jefferson 
 read and reread and marked " The Social Contract." 
 Rousseau was a man of feeling. 
 
 A taste tonic: Goethe says taste is to be educated 
 only by the contemplation of the truly excellent 
 
PHILOSOPHT'AH'D LITEEi5.TTJEE. 187 
 
 Matthew Arnold recommends us to carry in our 
 heads excerpts of the best of Homer, Virgil, Dante, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, and to repeat and repeat 
 these gems of literature to ourselves as a taste tonic. 
 
 Enjoyment is a prime essential in measuring a 
 book. 
 
 The object of reading literature is not only to un- 
 derstand it, but to experience it, to comprehend with 
 both the intellect and the emotions. 
 
 In order to accompany an author who soars, it is 
 necessary to have wings of one's owm. 
 
 Take literature out of your life and see how im- 
 poverished it is ! How many of your ideals go ! Out 
 go Thackeray, Dickens, Emerson, Tennyson, Brown- 
 ing, Longfellow, Whittier, Stevenson, Kipling, Tur- 
 genief, Guy de Maupassant. They have educated 
 our sympathies. It is our good fortune to live in a 
 time which in the whole course of English literature 
 is outranked only by the brilliant Elizabethan period. 
 
 " I went to a library shelf," said Pascal, " to take 
 down a book and instead of a book I found a man." 
 There are some such books, books every sentence of 
 which challenges our judgment, rouses the mind, 
 and deeply stirs the feelings. The author conveys 
 himself. 
 
 WRITERS AND NON-WRITERS. 
 
 Jesus wrote nothing. Like Socrates He remained 
 an authority — not an author. 
 
188 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCB 
 
 The literary student lives in an atmosphere satu- 
 rated with the memories, traditions, and history of 
 great men and great deeds. 
 
 Authors above all men should be intensely human. 
 The first question with regard to the author's style is, 
 "Is it vital?" "Has it life?" 
 
 Mr. Zola and his ilk pretend to describe human life 
 just as it is. But, Mr. Zola, why do you not take 
 note of its heights as well as its depths? You ought 
 to be ideal as well as real. The ideal is part of us. 
 Deal with nature's sublime possibilities. 
 
 " Can you emit sparks ? " asked the cat of the ugly 
 duckling. Emerson could emit sparks. He was all 
 sparks and shocks. He is the most non-consequen- 
 tious of writers. This is his characteristic. 
 
 THE PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 Ruskin is always outspoken. He reveals the beau- 
 ties and glories of art to the Philistines. 
 
 Matthew Arnold enjoyed an enormous vogue and 
 at times seemed to approach the chair of literary dic- 
 tator vacated by the death of Dr. Johnson. He is an 
 example of the furthest limit attainable by culture, 
 refinement, and genius. 
 
 Lord Morley says : " Carlyle unceasingly preached 
 the gospel of silence ; and in his own case managed to 
 condense it into thirty-five formidable volumes." 
 
 Andrew Lang never lets himself down by thor- 
 oughly admiring anybody. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATUEE 189 
 
 The infamy of Bacon is all but forgotten in the 
 glory of his literary testament. 
 
 Flaubert's writings are orchestral. 
 
 Montaigne's name for mankind is that of the great 
 doubter. His work is a book of mature life, a life 
 century-ripened. The sublimities, the enthusiasms, 
 the heroics of life are here. There is no death-chal- 
 lenge. 
 
 Walter Pater's Essay on Leonardo is his master- 
 piece. 
 
 Thackeray just saturated himself with Richardson, 
 Fielding, Smollett, Addison, and Steele. 
 
 One of the greatest things Herbert Spencer ever 
 wrote was his essay on " The Law of Pivotal Points." 
 These are the events that change the history of the 
 world. They carry opportunity. 
 
 Emerson writes on these topics which are at the 
 base of life; such as love, experience, character, man- 
 ners, fate, power, worship, nature, and art. Carlyle 
 outside of " Sartor Resartus " and " Hero Worship " 
 usually reviews books, histories, individuals at ex- 
 treme length and with dramatic comment and anal- 
 ysis. Emerson treats of the principles behind all his- 
 tory. Terseness is the distinctive feature of his style. 
 
 Goethe, Carlyle, Victor Hugo, the three conspicu- 
 ous writers of their century. 
 
 By Goethe men were magnetized into idolatry of 
 him. Take Carlyle's worship of Goethe. His was 
 
190 A BOOK OP EEMBMBEANCE 
 
 self-worship also. " Faust " was his greatest work. 
 The morals of the age were lax. His mother was 
 only eighteen when he was born, his father forty. 
 
 Hazlitt, the prince of critics; one of his most fin- 
 ished works is " The Spirit of the Age " or " Con- 
 temporary Portraits." 
 
 Everything in Dickens is in excess, caricature, com- 
 ical exaggeration. 
 
 In " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," by Stevenson, you 
 have St. Paul's text: "The flesh lusteth against the 
 spirit, etc.," buried deep into memory. 
 
 Laurence Sterne, a vicar, bom 1T13. "Tristam 
 Shandy." A gifted nonsensical. See his " Senti- 
 mental Journey." 
 
 Macaulay. Descended from Scotch Presbyterians, 
 and Quakers on his mother's side. Bom 1800, died 
 1859. He was an impressive speaker. He filled the 
 House of Parliament every time it was known that 
 he was to speak. He lives in his essays and history. 
 His writing charmed by its color, variety and interest. 
 His history is a brilliant narration of events. 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. A striking figure in the 
 history of English literature, striking alike by his 
 powers and his character. Personally he exercised 
 the spell of genius. Not to know this man, with his 
 force, charm, impetuosity, lofty attainments, is to be 
 a loser. He wrote on many subjects. His literary 
 activity extended over a period of sixty-eight years, 
 1795-1863. He was majestically sedate. He was 
 born in Warwick, January, 1775. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 191 
 
 Bernard Shaw has passion, and he has style. He 
 says things in an arresting voice. He uses the doc- 
 trines of sociaHsm as Cromwell's troopers used the 
 Psalms of David, or as Tolstoy used the Gospels of 
 Christ — viz., to put the unjust man and his evil ways 
 out of court and countenance. He was born to chas- 
 tise the sins of his day. 
 
 Beyle was by nature a robust sensualist and had 
 accustomed himself to a cynical boldness of expres- 
 sion. He prided himself that he was free from illu- 
 sions. Beyle's novels have been called: "Hand- 
 books of Hypocrisy." " Love's Work." Beyle says 
 the lover adorns his loved one, he makes her out per- 
 fection. He idealizes her. He calls it the process of 
 crystallization. " One takes pleasure in adorning 
 with a thousand perfections the woman of whose love 
 one is sure, one rehearses all the details of one's hap- 
 piness with infinite satisfaction. Allow the brain of 
 a lover to work for twenty-four hours and the result 
 will resemble what happens at Salzburg when a leaf- 
 less branch is let down into the deserted depths of the 
 salt mines. When it is drawn up again two or three 
 months later it is covered with myriads of dazzling 
 twinkling diamonds. The smallest twig is decked 
 with sparkling crystals. The original branch is un- 
 recognizable. What I denominate crystallization is 
 the operation of the mind which, from everything 
 that presents itself, draws the discovery of fresh per- 
 fections in the beloved object." 
 
 Prosper Merimee paints the individual in anec- 
 dotes, he argues and illustrates by anecdotes, he elu- 
 cidates by anecdotes. 
 
192 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEAITCE 
 
 Cervantes, one of the robust spirits in Spanish lit- 
 erature. No vital subject is alien to him. His style 
 is supple, delicate, adapted to reflect the facets as well 
 as the general form of his subject. He renews him- 
 self. His phrase becomes transparent, richer, sim- 
 pler, and more suggestive. It has the clarity of 
 Velasquez. 
 
 Oscar Wilde was a degenerate, yet he could write 
 English of silken delicacy. He wrote coarse stuff 
 also. He sowed great fields of literary wild oats. 
 
 POETS. 
 
 Browning would have you trust those moments 
 when the grand hope seems true to you, so would 
 God. Hence He sends us these grand moments. 
 
 b' 
 
 Browning is a help to the man that is down, who 
 has failed, who is disappointed. He breaks in upon 
 him with a strong and helpful word and mood. He 
 shows him the things that compensate. He helps 
 him in his emotional life. He sings a song to heal 
 the wound. He helps all who feel the difficulty of 
 believing. He is the great apologist. Browning is a 
 healthy man. He has faith. He discovers God 
 through all, in all, and over all. 
 
 There are pivotal moments. Browning was right 
 
 in his doctrine of the great " Eternal moments " 
 
 when the whole of life seems packed into a single 
 hour of revelation and destiny. 
 
 Browning's three poems, " Caliban on Setebos," 
 "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "A Death in the Desert" 
 should be read in this order, for there is a logical 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 193 
 
 order of thought. The first is as an amphibious brute 
 would imagine Him, the second is noble Hebrew 
 Theism, the third is the Christian God of Love. The 
 first is the most original, the second the finest. 
 
 Keats died at twenty-five, born the same year as 
 Carlyle. He had the gift of poetic expression, mas- 
 tery of diction. " Ode on a Grecian Tjrn," " Ode to 
 a Nightingale," "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Hy- 
 perion." 
 
 Byron, a great genius who stands on insincerity. 
 He lacked morals. In his finest frenzies he poses. 
 
 "The Vision of Sir Launfal" (Lowell). Sir 
 Launfal met a leper, he shared with him his crust, 
 and gave him to drink from his wooden bowl. 
 
 " As Sir Launfal mused with downcast face, 
 A light shone round about the place ; 
 The leper no longer crouched at his side. 
 But stood before him glorified, 
 Shining and tall and fair and straight. 
 ' Lo, it is 1, be not afraid ! 
 This is My body broken for thee. 
 This water His blood that died on the tree. 
 The Holy Supper is kept indeed. 
 In what we share with another's need : 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 For the gift without the giver is bare, 
 Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
 Himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me.' " 
 
 Lesson: carry the spirit of the fellowship of the 
 sacramental room out into life. Fill life with holy 
 
194 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 Christian fellowships and thus in different ways see 
 that " The Holy Supper is kept." 
 
 Wordsworth, a prophet as well as a poet, our great 
 interpreter of nature; only rival, Goethe, his great 
 contemporary. He believed that in some mysterious 
 way nature is alive, and able to teach mankind all the 
 lessons that mankind needs to know. 
 
 Browning wrote steadily for thirty years to a pub- 
 lic stolidly antagonistic. His creed " I believe in God 
 and truth, and love." He was an unflinching opti- 
 mist. Virtue lies in the struggle. He is not a seda- 
 tive ; he is a tonic. A great thought leader. He calls 
 to manhood, 
 
 Shelley died at thirty, but he had reached his full 
 development. He was, to use Browning's epithet, a 
 " Sun-Treader." 
 
 Tennyson, the most representative poet of the 
 nineteenth century. He lived in every decade of the 
 nineteenth century. Not an original man. He 
 translated into verse the thoughts of others. He 
 stated problems rather than solved them. He was the 
 spokesman of his age. Practically all the philosoph- 
 ical, scientific, and political thoughts of the nineteenth 
 century may be found in his works. The friendship 
 between Tennyson and Browning is one of the beau- 
 tiful things in the annals of literature. 
 
 " The Ring and the Book " is the measure of 
 Browning. 
 
 Swinburne was " the Poet of Youth." 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 196 
 
 The Parliament of Religion at Chicago's World 
 Fair brought out one great fact, viz., that God never 
 left Himself without a witness, and that there can 
 never be but one true religion. All the religions of 
 the whole world are so many attempts to realize it, 
 and formulate it. Tennyson puts it thus: 
 
 " They are but broken lights of Thee, 
 And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 
 
 Browning's plays, although representative of char- 
 acters and conditions, are not dramatic, his persons 
 make long speeches in labored verse. They all talk 
 alike, all alike. 
 
 England added an Eleventh Commandment to the 
 Ten: " Don't read Byron's books." 
 
 Poe is full of unreality. But even his mystery to 
 his mind is mathematical. He loves to dissect cancers 
 of the mind. His style is highly finished, graceful 
 and truly classical. His form has great merit. 
 
 As a poetic writer Poe gives in " The Bells " the 
 most perfect example of his power of words. Per- 
 haps there is nothing beyond this for power of words 
 in all poetic literature. Mrs. Shaw of New York as- 
 sisted Poe in writing " The Bells." He had to write 
 a poem, he said, but was in no humor. She served 
 him tea in the conservatory, the windows of which 
 were open admitting the sound of the neighboring 
 church bells. She produced pens and paper, but he 
 declined them, saying that he disliked the sound of 
 bells so much that night that he could not write. She 
 took the pen and paper and wrote the headline " The 
 
196 A BOOK OP 
 
 Bells," by E. A. Poe: and for the first line of the 
 projected poem wrote, " The bells, the little silver 
 bells." He finished the stanza. She suggested for 
 the first line of the second stanza, " The heavy iron 
 bells," and he finished that stanza also. Then he 
 copied the composite poem and headed it, " By Mrs. 
 M. L. Shaw" and handed it to her, saying it was 
 hers. 
 
 Literature includes four epic poems of the first 
 rank of genius. The Iliad, the ^neid, the Divine 
 Comedy, and Paradise Lost. Strangely enough, 
 these primary springs of education for four nations 
 have one and the same theme, the divineness of man's 
 soul, its loss and recovery. 
 
 All Browning's poems are nothing but dramas of 
 the inner life. 
 
 Omar Khayyam: " Rubaiyat." The poem is the 
 best expression of a bad mood. A sort of Bible of 
 unbelief. Still pessimism is a thing unfit for a white 
 man, it ought never to be a food. 
 
 Tennyson sings the deep, wide love of God, the 
 deathless destiny of men, the radiant beauty and per- 
 fection of Christ, the soul's Saviour. " Crossing the 
 Bar" was his last will and testament to the world. 
 The works of Tennyson include more than three hun- 
 dred quotations from the Bible. 
 
 Poetic Types: 
 
 1 — The Ethical, or subjective school. 
 
 2 — The Classical, esthetic school. 
 
 3 — The Romantic, or objective school. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 197 
 
 The essentials of poetry: 
 
 1 — Thought ; the poet must be a man of ideas. 
 
 2 — Imagination. 
 
 3 — Feeling. 
 
 4— Taste. 
 
 The rewards of poetry: 
 
 1 — It is a revealer and interpreter of Hfe and na- 
 ture. 
 
 2 — It elevates and refines. 
 3 — It gives pleasure. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow was the first American to 
 receive the honor of a bust in the Poets' Corner in 
 Westminster Abbey. His poetical works are noted 
 for their perfection in construction, beauty of 
 thought, and simplicity of expression. 
 
 The monologue, as Browning has exemplified it, is 
 one end of a conversation. Browning is the poet of 
 the monologue. 
 
 Browning is a wise and true doctor of the soul. 
 To him life was full of great things, love, beauty, joy. 
 His poems are all aglow with the color of life, its 
 many-hued interests. Hence while we read him we 
 find it easy to share his strenuous hope and his firm 
 faith, particularly his faith in immortality. One of 
 his characteristic phrases is, " Tell the whole mind 
 out." 
 
 Paul as a poet. The Hymn to Love, 1 Corinthians 
 13, is a classic in literature. The eighth chapter of 
 Romans is poetical. The opening of the Epistle to 
 the Ephesians with its refrain " To the praise of His 
 
198 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCE 
 
 glory " is nothing but a great and solemn poem which 
 celebrates the grace of God. He says: "la Hebrew 
 of the Hebrews," and then he straightens himself up 
 and grandly claims his privileges, " Whose are the 
 fathers, and the adoption, and the Shekinah, and the 
 covenants, and the legislation, and the liturgy, and 
 the promises, and to whom belong the Patriarchs, and 
 from whom arises the Messiah" (Romans 9:4^5). 
 
 The time which Horace recommended that a poem 
 remain unpubhshed is nine years. PubUsh it if it 
 holds its own at the end of nine years. 
 
 " The Bigelow Papers " are a master work. They 
 set forth Yankee character in its thought, dialect, 
 manners, shrewdness, and fundamental sense of 
 beauty and height; they were a great hit. 
 
 Tennyson with all his tune and color " Climbs no 
 mount of vision." 
 
 Heine, a German Jew. One thing he proves, viz., 
 that genius without principle acts only as a chaotic 
 force; also that mere Hellenism will not save the 
 world. 
 
 On Heine, of all German authors, the largest por- 
 tion of Goethe's mantle fell. Heinrich Heine was 
 born in Homberg. By race a Jew, with warm 
 sympathies for France. A Philistine, a dogged, un- 
 enlightened opponent of the chosen people and of the 
 children of light. Heine writes: " I might settle in 
 England, were it not I should find Englishmen there; 
 I carmot abide them." 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 199 
 
 Sappho, the Greek poetess. She lived somewhere 
 between 628 and 5Y2 b. c, three centuries before 
 Homer, two centuries before Pericles. Among the 
 Greeks "The Poet" meant Homer, "The Poetess" 
 meant Sappho. Plato called her " The Tenth Muse." 
 Tradition has it that the recitation of one of her 
 poems so affected Solon, the great lawgiver, that he 
 expressed the wish that he might not die till he had 
 learned it by heart. She was as pure as gold. She 
 was not an Aspasia. The loss of her poems is a 
 great loss to the world. 
 
 There is nothing in the poems or letters of Bums 
 that goes beyond sincere Deism — the religion de- 
 scribed in "The Cottar's Saturday Night" is his 
 father's faith not his own (Principal Shairp). He 
 made the poorest ploughman proud of his station and 
 his toil. He was the impersonation of a Scotsman 
 on a large scale. He was the interpreter of the 
 Scotch peasantry. He restored Scotch' nationality. 
 The world owes the love of Scotland to-day to Burns. 
 Burns' sympathies were not confined to class nor 
 country, they reached to universal man. 
 
 " Facts are chiels that winna ding 
 And daurna be disputed." 
 
 He has spoken home to the universal heart. It is as 
 a song-writer that Burns has his greatest fame, and 
 he was a man of an intense nature. These songs em- 
 body human emotion ; for these songs the world owes 
 him gratitude. 
 
 Byron died when he was thirty-six, Keats when he 
 was twenty-five and Shelley when he was thirty. It 
 
200 A BOOK OP EBMEMBEANCE 
 
 is worse than useless to deplore the irremediable. 
 What the world would have lost if Bach, Titian, 
 Michael Angelo, and Goethe had died young ! Shelley- 
 was educated at Eton and Oxford, and he had no 
 faculty for compromise. His works include, " Pro- 
 metheus Unbound," " The Cenci," and " The Hymn 
 to Intellectual Beauty." He says, " I am content to 
 see no further into the future than Plato and Bacon. 
 My mind is tranquil. We know nothing. We have 
 no evidence." 
 
 Dryden: born 1631. Very little material for a bi- 
 ography. "Absalom and Architophel," " Song for 
 St. Cecilia's Day." He wrote eagerly for the stage. 
 
 Thomas Gray: bom 1716. "Elegy in a Country 
 Churchyard." 
 
 Edmund Spenser. A beginning in English litera- 
 ture. Born 1552. "Faerie Queene," "The Shep- 
 herd's Calendar." 
 
 Southey. He lived completely in literature. I do 
 not know that it would be much of a loss to lose his 
 works. 
 
 There are fugitive songs hidden in odd corners of 
 newspapers; they are bits of flying Stardust, which 
 glow for a moment in swift passage through the fir- 
 mament and vanish, having no home in the eternities. 
 Some have charm and feeling and a hint of true 
 beauty, and some have a magical lilt. They have a 
 single bright instinct, a loveliness ; the world would be 
 poorer without them. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 201 
 
 Walt Whitman is a master egotist, but he made 
 good. He did not blame himself! He censured the 
 world. He would never willingly yield an inch to it. 
 His life was a fight from start to finish. He was a 
 rebel in his art and in his message. He was a radical. 
 He belonged to revolt. He started not with wealth; 
 he started with man. He preached accordingly. He 
 ran counter to the prejudices of traditions. To the 
 last he was a young old man still jubilant. He was a 
 new force let loose on old earth. People got used to 
 him, they tolerated him, they respected him, they 
 loved him. In Russia a whole native edition of 
 Whitman was destroyed. In Toronto, Canada, the 
 authorities raided the bookstores for objectionable 
 classics and destroyed the books by Whitman. Whit- 
 man is quoted everywhere. Whitman is vindicated. 
 He was in the beginning called " the lecherous old 
 man." He was a social outlaw. He had celebrated 
 English friends who sustained him, gave him vitality 
 and courage. Tennyson said: "Acknowledge and re- 
 spect him." The critics, the first rate men, deferred 
 to him. Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, he was convinc- 
 ing to them. He immediately justified himself with 
 men and women of original insight. Young men 
 realized the vivid quality of his intuition, but some of 
 them cooled off; their logic disproved of his. He is 
 a discussed man. Books have been written taking 
 sides on his philosophy of the sex. He is one of the 
 inevitables. He arrived and that by the things in his 
 writings that have a race quality, things that fit In 
 with the struggle of democracy in the world. There 
 is something in Whitman which baffles us yet per- 
 suades us ; so Tennyson found it. We accentuate our 
 differences by our experiments. He shows that we 
 
202 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCE 
 
 are more alike than not alike. We are more noble 
 than not noble. He was the advocate of the new hu- 
 manities. He is the poet of democracy and the de- 
 mocracy that repudiated him. He talked of the 
 Americanization of the world. To Whitman the 
 people are inevitably first, that is what the " Leaves 
 of Grass " all come to. Carlyle spoke of Whitman 
 as " one who thought he was a big man because he 
 lived in a big country." When Matthew Arnold in 
 Philadelphia was asked what he thought of Whitman, 
 he replied, "Ah, what does Longfellow think of Whit- 
 man?" 
 
 Keats, with all his devotion to the antique and to 
 Greek mythology, is a sensualist. He is gifted with 
 the keenest, widest, and most delicate perceptions, 
 sees, hears, feels, tastes, and inhales, all the varieties 
 of glorious colors, of song, of silky texture, of fruit 
 flavor, of flower fragrance, which nature offers. 
 
 THE PERSONAL SIDE. 
 
 Stevenson liked Kipling, though with many hesita- 
 tions. 
 
 Great literary men come in groups. 
 
 Renan was France's most amiable and smiling 
 sceptic. 
 
 Ruskin was an Apostle of beauty and truth. He 
 stood for a fine, high, heroic regimen. He had a 
 deep enthusiasm for man. He and his works are full 
 of an intense humanity. He worked for his higher 
 nature. He had a pathetic career. Wealth is divine 
 if divinely used. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AKD LITEEATUEE 203 
 
 Once the roll of human splendor read thus: Homer, 
 Hesiod, ^schylus, Euripides, Pericles, Plato, Virgil, 
 Cicero, Caesar, Tacitus. The splendor of this cata- 
 logue none will dare to deny ; but in modern times the 
 book of fame has been opened and these are the 
 names in it now: Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Goethe, 
 Heine, Schiller, Lessing, Bacon, Newton, Cuvier, 
 Victor Hugo, Humboldt, Mueller, Darwin, Huxley, 
 and Agassiz. 
 
 At thirty-five Byron, one of the handsomest boys 
 of his day, found his hair nearly white, his hands 
 trembling like the hands of a man of eighty, his 
 genius burned out. 
 
 Goethe, the gifted German poet, whose autobiog- 
 raphy calls the roll of many love affairs. 
 
 "Henry -Drummond " (by George Adam Smith) 
 describes a life crowned with interests and activities 
 and shows the fond extravagances which grief will 
 weave into a dead friend's qualities. He showed a 
 Christianity that was perfectly natural. There was a 
 swing to his work and a brightness in his face. He 
 seemed to carry no cares. He was unspoiled. He 
 knew neither presumption nor timidity. There was 
 no assumption of superiority, and no ambition to gain 
 influence. He was one of the finest, most unselfish 
 souls, most reverent you ever knew, but you would 
 not call him a saint. He had a genius for friendship, 
 he had such a humility, patience, and the power to 
 trust. His gratitude and admiration were among the 
 most beautiful features of his character. His style 
 has the print of hard labor. He had a mesmeric in- 
 
204 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 fluence, the most perfect, effortless command of every 
 audience. He prepared his books. They were writ- 
 ten with the thoroughness of a French styhst. He 
 had a perfect way of telhng stories. Men felt he was 
 not a voice merely, but a friend. Drummond's scien- 
 tific training gave him a sense for facts and an appre- 
 ciation of evidence. A month or two before his 
 death Drummond said that he wished his book 
 " Natural Law in the Spiritual World " withdrawn 
 from circulation. 
 
 Tirelessly Drummond studied his Darwin, Wallace 
 and Spencer, all those specialists who have scrutinized 
 the world of matter, but he loved his Plato, his Paul, 
 and his Kant, those who had explored the realm of 
 mind. 
 
 Society has left behind the sins of Robert Bums 
 but joyfully carries forward his sweet songs. 
 
 What Tennyson wrote he first was. 
 
 Balzac claims to have originated two thousand 
 characters. They are children of his fancy. He un- 
 dertook to analyze and classify man and his life. He 
 clothed the vulgar, the sensual, the vicious, and the 
 vile in the white robes of literature and fine writings 
 and ornamented them with the gold and jewels and 
 sparkling figures of epigrams and classical allusions. 
 
 John Fiske constantly carried a load of atmosphere. 
 His " Through Nature to God " is fine. 
 
 Voltaire said of Rousseau, " He is like an oven that 
 is too hot ; it burns everything that is put into it." 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 205 
 
 Keats was an unfulfilled prophecy; Burns one 
 whose life was a tragedy. What Raphael is in color, 
 what Mozart is in music, that Burns is in song. Be- 
 cause of debt he was in terror of a debtor's prison. 
 He fell upon an untimely death. 
 
 Jane Austen produced great art, and knew it not. 
 No book published in her time bore her name on the 
 title page. She never was lionized by society. She 
 died at forty-two. It was sixty years before a biog- 
 raphy was attempted or asked for. She sleeps in the 
 Cathedral at Winchester. 
 
 James Russell Lowell was a man of letters. He 
 embraced literature as a profession. He was satu- 
 rated with it. His power was moral impulse. The 
 whole man was his power. There was much of the 
 Greek in him, i. e., the sense of ordered beauty and 
 art. He writes as if he were saturated with litera- 
 ture. He added to the love of learning the love of 
 expression, language, form, style. He was proof 
 against dryness. He did fine work in a fine way. 
 He was able to gather in and store up fine impres- 
 sions. He belonged to the massive race. He is a 
 great voice. A citizen in the republic of letters. He 
 touched nothing that he did not adorn. 
 
 Some men's writings have the quality of conveying 
 personality. Men love them and they read them. 
 They create friendship. 
 
 Matthew Arnold admired the Zeitgeist, the " Time 
 Spirit." Christianity so far as it is true at all is a 
 truth of human nature, not of theology. Matthew 
 Arnold is a master of a grand style. He is a teacher. 
 
206 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEANCE 
 
 He derived from his father a certain authority of 
 tone. He almost succeeded in becoming himself 
 what he delineated in Goethe. To him " God is the 
 stream of tendency, — not ourselves, v^rhich makes for 
 righteousness." "Religion is morality touched with 
 emotion." " The emotions in the Christian religion 
 are excited by ideas, not facts." He advocates " sweet 
 reasonableness " as the rule of human life. What do 
 we get from Matthew Arnold? A sense of refine- 
 ment. He is an agnostic. He gives strength to scep- 
 ticism. He gives faith no new nerve. Hope no new 
 light. He gives no new power to help bear the bur- 
 dens of life. 
 
 George Eliot. It is rare to find an intellect so 
 skilled in the analysis of psychological problems, so 
 completely at home in the delineation of character. 
 She finds comparison a great help in understanding 
 men and things. Her personality tinged all she 
 wrote. 
 
 Some people fill the whole place with an oppressive 
 atmosphere. They give you the nightmare. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. The data for a biography 
 are very few. His career was tranquil and unevent- 
 ful. He lived a simple life ; few vicissitudes or vari- 
 ations in it. He lived in a provincial and rural com- 
 munity. He produced but little, four novels, five 
 volumes of short tales, a collection of sketches. 
 He was a master of expression. He was so modest. 
 The flower of art blooms only where the soil is deep. 
 The cold bright air of New England seems to blow 
 through his pages. It is a tonic atmosphere. He 
 was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. His 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 207 
 
 ancestors persecuted the Quakers and witches. His 
 was an unperplexed intellect. He was not expansive 
 nor imaginative. He was forty when " The Scarlet 
 Letter " was published. There is a strain of gener- 
 ous indolence in his writings. Lay up treasures of 
 pleasant remembrances for coming old age. Master- 
 pieces in his short-stories are " Melvin's Burial," 
 " Rappacini's Daughter," " Young Goodman Brown," 
 "A Rill from the Town Pump," "The Village 
 Uncle," " The Chippings with a Chisel." He takes 
 human nature seriously. Confessions which the soul 
 makes to itself. He had a relish of gloomy subjects. 
 He likes their rich duskiness of color, their pictur- 
 esqueness. These lovely conversations with conscience, 
 this habit of seeing sin everywhere, and hell always 
 gaping open, this perpetually living in a downward 
 world, well, it is not my choice, even if it is Puritanic. 
 
 Poe writes: " ' The Pilgrim's Progress ' is a ridicu- 
 lously overrated book." 
 
 Of Voltaire, Gibbon says: " It was assuredly in his 
 power to amuse the reader with a gallery of portraits 
 and a collection of anecdotes." It was a proof, not 
 of merit, but of success. 
 
 Swift was the famous Dean of St. Patrick. He 
 was born in Dublin. His friendships were rather an- 
 nexations than alliances. Swift wrote " The Tale of 
 a Tub," "The Battle of the Books," "Gulliver's 
 Travels." 
 
 Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, 1769. He 
 was always peculiar. Disease and superstition stood 
 by his cradle and never quitted him during life. The 
 
208 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 demon of hypochondria was always lying in wait for 
 him. Disease had scarred and disfigured features 
 otherwise regular and impressive. It seriously in- 
 jured his eyes, destroying the sight of one entirely. 
 His father used to open book stalls in the large towns 
 on fair days. He asked Samuel one day to take his 
 place and sell books at a stall at Uttoxeter, for he was 
 ill, but the boy's pride made him refuse. Fifty years 
 after he went to the spot and stood all day with un- 
 covered head before the stall, exposed to the sneers of 
 the bystanders and the inclemency of the weather. 
 He was doing penance for the sin of disobedience. 
 He showed the remorse of a fine character. He had 
 large physical and mental appetite. He gorged books. 
 He was a man of great powers. Wesley was his con- 
 temporary, six years older than he. The greatest 
 chance in those days for a poor man was through the 
 Church, but Johnson thought that " a tavern chair " 
 was a better arena than a pulpit for the utterance of 
 his message to mankind. When twenty-six he mar- 
 ried a widow of forty-six. He said it was a love 
 match on both sides. He had a huge contempt for 
 foppery. He became an inmate of " Grub Street." 
 He issued his dictionary, and published " The Ram- 
 bler." He became a hero and was so worshipped. 
 Johnson could be insolent. The world of literature 
 has become too large to-day for an authority. Gold- 
 smith urged that Boswell wished to make a monarchy 
 of what ought to be a republic. He was known as 
 " Dictionary Johnson." When Samuel Johnson sent 
 the last page of his dictionary to his publisher, he 
 asked the messenger what the publisher said. He 
 said, " Thank God, I am done with hira." " I am 
 glad," replied Johnson, " that he thanks God for any- 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 209 
 
 thing." George III granted Johnson a pension of 
 three hundred pounds a year. Would he take it? 
 He did — though in his dictionary he had defined a 
 pension as " generally understood to mean pay given 
 to a state hireling for treason to his country." He 
 some way made it out that he did not come within 
 that definition. Strange eccentricities had now be- 
 come a second nature to him. He was supposed to 
 be in his right place in a Grub Street pot-house. He 
 was a bear, and he was a very good hater. He could 
 always escape from himself to the society of his 
 friends and admirers. He laid down laws to his dis- 
 ciples collected in a tavern instead of academic groves. 
 Especially he was in all his glory at the club. Elec- 
 tion to the club was a great honor. Boswell, a Scots- 
 man, had come to London eager for the acquaintance 
 of literary magnates. " Mr. Johnson," he said, " I 
 do indeed come from Scotland; but I cannot help it." 
 Boswell told Johnson he had heard a Quaker woman 
 preach. " A woman preaching," said Johnson, " is 
 like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done 
 well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." He 
 could be biting: " It is easier to write that book than 
 to read it." " No, sir: the Irish are a fair people ; they 
 never speak well of one another." " Well, sir, God 
 made Scotland." " Certainly, but we must remember 
 He made it for Scotsmen." 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith was born 1728, in Ireland. He 
 earned the world's gratitude. He was an optimist, 
 and avoided the darker problems of existence. 
 Cheerfulness shines like sunshine in his writings. He 
 carried no weapon but his heart. He had a happy 
 knack of enjoying the present hour. " The Vicar of 
 
210 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Wakefield " follows structurally the lines of the Book 
 of Job. 
 
 When by the order of Lord Elgin marbles were 
 taken from the Parthenon to England to the British 
 Museum, Byron was indignant and wrote " The 
 Curse of Minerva." But the marbles were molder- 
 ing at Athens. They are now preserved with great 
 care in the British Museum. Of Byron's face it was 
 said by Scott, " His countenance was a thing to 
 dream of." 
 
 Thomas de Quincey was born 1T85, near Man- 
 chester, England. It was while he was in school at 
 Oxford that he began to take opium. The effect was 
 divine. It was an intellectual exhilaration and stimu- 
 lant. Coleridge used opium, too. Some of his 
 dreams as an opium eater were hideous and it pro- 
 duced a suicidal tendency. De Quincey's self-expo- 
 sure is in " The Confessions of an English Opium 
 Eater." 
 
 Cowper, the poet of the religious revival. Asso- 
 ciated with Wesley and Whitefield. Born in 1731 in 
 his father's rectory, Berkhamstead. The Church was 
 little better than a political force. Of humanity, 
 there was as little as of religion. It was the age of 
 criminal law, which hanged men for petty thefts ; im- 
 prisoned for life a debtor; used the stocks and pil- 
 lory; put the heads of traitors on Temple Bar. The 
 slave trade prevailed, and religious people took part 
 in it without scruples. Wesley was twenty-eight and 
 Whitefield was seventeen when Cowper was born. 
 At thirty-two he went mad and attempted suicide. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 211 
 
 John Bunyan was the greatest English dramatist of 
 life. 
 
 Browning's poetry did not yield him a livelihood. 
 From his father he constantly received enough to live 
 on. His father made his life-work possible, made it 
 possible for him to do his best. His mother was de- 
 voutly religious, a Congregationalist, a dissenter. 
 His education was on the elective system, and by 
 private tutors. He was not a university man. But 
 his education was a success. His first poem " Paul- 
 ine " appeared before he was twenty-one. His aunt 
 gave him the money to publish it. Not a single copy 
 was sold. The unbound sheets came home to roost. 
 Its commercial value was zero. A copy of it, how- 
 ever, the other day sold for $2,400. His second 
 poem " Paracelsus " written when he was twenty- 
 three. It attracted no general attention although en- 
 thusiastically reviewed by John Forster. Italy was 
 the land of his inspiration. The scenes of " Pippa 
 Passes " he located there. Browning was born 1812. 
 After 1840 for thirty years he produced poetry of 
 the highest order. The story of his married life is 
 one of the greatest of love stories in the world's his- 
 tory (Wm. Lyon Phelps in " How to Know 
 Browning"). It is like the examples of Heloise and 
 Abelard, Aucassin and Nicolette, Paul and Virginia. 
 He was six years his wife's junior. Mrs. Browning 
 was the idol of the household and everything revolved 
 around her. The only cloud in Mrs. Browning's 
 mind was the (to her) incomprehensible neglect of 
 her husband by the public. At the time of their mar- 
 riage it was commonly said that a young literary man 
 had eloped with a poetess. During their married life 
 
212 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANOB 
 
 her books went invariably into many editions while 
 his did not sell at all. Even to the last day of 
 Browning's earthly existence, her poems far outsold 
 his — to his unspeakable delight. 
 
 " George Bernard Shaw " by Archibald Henderson 
 of the University of North Carolina. Observe his 
 thoughtful laughter, and his elfish impudence, as well 
 as his remarkable talent. It takes a book to intro- 
 duce him and a big book at that, yes, a work of 
 twenty volumes. His whimsicalities find gay expres- 
 sion which delights his auditors. He deserves enthu- 
 siastic championship. Shaw is a socialist, a publicist, 
 an economist. He is up to the chin in the life of his 
 times. He is identified with the last quarter of the 
 nineteenth century and the first decade of the 
 twentieth century. Shaw pointed out the magnitude 
 of writing his biography. He says of himself: "I 
 have lived three centuries." What is his place in the 
 providential order of the world? His career may 
 only be begun. There may be a series of master- 
 pieces yet before him. His humor and courage have 
 cleansed the intellect of to-day. Mr. Shaw was fond 
 of saying: " I am a typical Irishman." His lineal 
 ancestor, Captain William Shaw, was of Scotch de- 
 scent. He is a free thinker, and equally free writer 
 and speaker. He coats the pill of the satirist with the 
 sugar of the artist. Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw 
 both born in Dublin, Ireland. Shaw was born July 
 26, 1856. He is not an exponent of a school. He 
 himself is a school. Shaw says: "All autobiogra- 
 phies are lies," — deliberate lies. Shaw, who was once 
 a trembling novice, became a telling platform orator 
 with a phenomenal faculty of telling speech, easy, 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITBEATUEE 213 
 
 nonchalant, resourceful, instantaneous in repartee, 
 sublime in audacity, brilliant, extraordinary, yet a 
 self-made man. He said, " Anybody can get my skill 
 at the same price." Against Bradlaugh he would 
 have been outclassed. He so roused people from 
 their stupor that they called him names. The truth 
 is that Shaw stands for certain principles. His is the 
 belief of the unbeliever, the principle of the unprin- 
 cipled, the faith of the sceptic. Unfettered he stands 
 forth as a great and free spirit. Shaw holds that 
 Shakespeare's supreme power lies in his " Enormous 
 command of word music which gives fascination to 
 his most blackguardly repartees and sublimity to his 
 hollowest platitudes." Of his play " Caesar and Cleo- 
 patra" he says: "I am going to give Shakespeare a 
 lead." 
 
 Scott and Moore are positive literary personifica- 
 tions of Scotland and Ireland. 
 
 George Brandes, an arch-pedant. 
 
 Goethe was an ardent Pantheist. Goethe's life be- 
 comes fuller from the moment Schiller enters into it. 
 But he should have gotten more out of Schiller's 
 death than he did. He should have profited more by 
 it. But Goethe refused sorrow entrance into his life. 
 That was his custom, determinedly to refuse sorrow. 
 If he had allowed sorrow to enter into him and to be- 
 come part of himself the result would have been a re- 
 newal of youth, it would have increased his poetical 
 productivity. 
 
 John Locke, the philosopher, was born 1633. 
 Famous by his essay on " The Human Understand- 
 
214 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 ing." His character may alternately attract and re- 
 pel, but it is signally masterful. 
 
 Moore is the personification of spiritualized sensual- 
 ity. He dazzles our minds with sunshine, deafens 
 with the song of the nightingale and drowns them in 
 sweetness. We live with him in endless dreams of 
 things, flowers, rainbows, smiles, blushes, tears, 
 kisses. 
 
 In 1843 Wordsworth and Dickens met for the first 
 time. A mutual friend asked Wordsworth what he 
 thought of Dickens. He answered: " While I am not 
 much given to turn critic on people I meet, I will an- 
 swer your question. I candidly avow that I thought 
 him very talkative, a vulgar young man, but I dare 
 say he may be clever. Mind, I don't want to say a 
 word against him, for I have never read a line he has 
 written." The same man asked Dickens how he liked 
 the Poet Laureate. "Like him? Not at all. He is 
 a dreadful old ass." 
 
 Old Wordsworth when Keats (by persuasion of 
 friends) recited to him the famous "Hymn to Pan" 
 from the first book of his " Endymion " only re- 
 marked: "It is a pretty piece of Paganism." This 
 was meant to be a verdict harsh and scathing. Oh, 
 Jealousy ! 
 
 Shelley stands for radical materialism. If in 1820 
 the question had been asked, "Who is Shelley?" 
 the answer would have been, " A bad poet with 
 shocking principles and a worse than doubtful char- 
 acter." He was born 1792. Buried in Rome. Shel- 
 ley is the author only of the few elect. While sailing 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 215 
 
 from Leghorn to Lerice he perished in a sudden gale ; 
 his body was washed, an ahnost unrecognizable 
 corpse, on shore. The Tuscan law required any ob- 
 ject cast on shore to be burned. Shelley's body was 
 committed to the flames by Byron and Trelawney, 
 with Grecian and pagan observances that were in har- 
 mony with his character. Frankincense, lime, salt 
 and oil were poured on the fuel. The day was beau- 
 tiful and the surroundings were glorious. The flame 
 arose golden and towering. The body was consumed, 
 but to the surprise of all, the heart remained entire. 
 The ashes were removed and deposited near the 
 Pyramids of Cestius in Rome, which Shelley had 
 spoken of as an ideal resting place. Byron was made 
 his spiritual heir. " Cor Cordium " on his tombstone, 
 " heart of hearts." 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes' atmosphere permeates all 
 Boston. He represented, interpreted Boston. He 
 himself was Boston epitomized. He was an abridge- 
 ment of Boston. The best of Boston concentrated in 
 a human form. To read his " Autocrat " is an intel- 
 lectual, aesthetic delight. His ideals were all of the 
 old time. 
 
 Dickens was born 1812. Although indignant at the 
 sight of slavery when he was in the United States of 
 America, yet twenty years after, during the Civil 
 War, his sympathies were with the cause of the 
 South and slavery in its conflict with the " Mad and 
 villainous North." 
 
 Richard Bentley, a scholar in the classics. Gold- 
 smith called him the Terence of England. He was 
 naturally lofty. He played a large part in the move- 
 
216 A BOOK OF EBMEMBEAJSTOE 
 
 ment to restore ancient literature to the modern 
 world. Bentley says: "The wit and the genius of 
 these old heathen beguile me." So he gave his life 
 to resurrecting them and reediting them, and to the 
 purification of the classical text. 
 
 SIDE LIGHTS. 
 
 Fly off on a tangent — Paul did and his tangents are 
 often his best writings. 
 
 It is said that " every bright idea of Benvenuto's 
 is an idea and a half." He had a keen sense of living 
 values. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Ruskin furnishes his readers with a lens through 
 which all natural objects are glorified. 
 
 The story is told of Plato that when he was a child, 
 bees alighted on his lips as he slept and left their 
 honey there without a particle of their sting. A pro- 
 phetic symbol of the coming man. 
 
 THE CLASSICS. 
 
 In translating Homer, Matthew Arnold sums up 
 the literary characteristics of the great poet in these 
 words: "Homer is rapid in his movements; Homer 
 is plain in his words; Homer is rich in his style; 
 Homer is simple in his ideas; Homer is noble in his 
 manner and his writing is beautiful as a sum total." 
 That is also a description of St. Luke. 
 
 Aspasia says of Homer: "Homer nourishes my 
 fancy, animates my dreams, awakens me in the morn- 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 217 
 
 ing, marches with me, sails with me, teaches me 
 morals, teaches me languages, teaches me music and 
 philosophy and war." 
 
 The Greeks wrought up the Greek language into 
 epics and lyrics, and dramas and histories and ora- 
 tions as incomparable in form and beauty as their 
 temples and statues. 
 
 When the great Athenian dramatists came upon the 
 stage, they found a whole world of poetry and knowl- 
 edge lying inchoate in myth and tradition. They 
 worked this up into cosmos and gave the world mas- 
 terpieces. They gave it immortal form. 
 
 Pericles, Aspasia, Socrates, these are three great 
 names in history and philosophy. " What is its 
 use ? " was the Socratic question. Socrates had many 
 pupils who have been the world's teachers; Plato and 
 Aristotle are two of the best known. 
 
 What Shakespeare gave was a many-sided repre- 
 sentation of life. What the Greek dramatists gave 
 was an interpretation of life. 
 
 Plato was an idealist, yet he was rooted. 
 
 Mark the ridicule of Aristophanes, the Greek 
 Punch. Truth was conveyed through the lips of his 
 characters on the stage. 
 
 Virgil's prophecy of the Saviour's birth in the 
 fourth Eclogue proves that the hopes of Christians 
 and pagans have many ideals in common. They saw 
 a golden age coming. 
 
218 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 The Greek language perfected by Plato and 
 Demosthenes and other Greek scholars as the fittest 
 vehicle of noble thought was diffused through the 
 ancient world by the merchants of commerce and by 
 the conquests of Alexander. It prepared the way for 
 the New Testament, for the Book of Christ. It be- 
 came the universal language. 
 
 What Plato did for Socrates, Mencius did for Con- 
 fucius, Fitzgerald for Khayyam. 
 
 Homer's Iliad is almost faultless; there is scarcely 
 a feeble line in it. 
 
 England has two books, — one which she made 
 (Shakespeare), one which has made her (the Bible). 
 
 To acquire style, Demosthenes copied seven times 
 the works of Thucydides the great historian. 
 
 The men representative of Latin prose style are 
 Cicero, Livy, Juvenal, Tacitus. 
 
 In the story of the ten years' wandering of 
 Odysseus of Ithaca, beauty preponderates over terror 
 because the powers with which Odysseus has to do are 
 not mere forces of nature but spiritual beings who 
 take an interest for or against him in his fate. All 
 the forces of nature are divine and conscious agents. 
 To the Greeks the winds are persons, not elements. 
 The human passions were also spiritual persons to 
 the Greeks. Aphrodite, mother of Eros, incarnates 
 the passions of love, Ares the lust of war, Athene 
 wisdom, Apollo music and the arts. The Greek re- 
 ligion was the foundation of society. The Greek 
 gods were human beings like themselves, though su- 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 219 
 
 perlor. They begat sons and daughters. Between 
 them and mankind there was no impassable gulf. 
 From Hercules, the son of Zeus, was descended the 
 Dorian race, the Ionian from Ion, son of Apollo. 
 Then the gods were founders of society. The state 
 itself was, in a sense, the Church to the Greeks. The 
 gods were mixed up in everything. Their advice 
 was sought in everything. It was in ritual and art, 
 not in propositions that the Greek religion expressed 
 itself. It was closer, in this respect, to the Roman 
 Catholic religion than to the Protestant. They took 
 the natural emotions excited by the birth of the spring 
 and connected them with the worship of Dionysius 
 and gave them form. Moments of nature were 
 seized and idealized. The whole life of man, in its 
 relation to nature and society, was conceived as de- 
 rived from and dependent upon his gods. His re- 
 ligion was expressed in his festival. 
 
 Pindar was one of the musical voices. His lyre 
 struck one chord, but it was a powerful chord, the 
 love of home. 
 
 The " Odyssey " is the greatest out-of-door poem 
 in literature. It is an epic of the sea. 
 
 Matthew Arnold takes us to Homer as a model to 
 show us the art of writing. " Homer has the sim- 
 plicity of reality, the directness of unconscious ex- 
 pression, the fullness of a vast range of life." 
 
 The Homeric Problems: the origin, date, author- 
 ity, and history of the Iliad and Odyssey provide a 
 great problem. They have exercised great minds; 
 some have smashed the two great epics into frag- 
 
220 A BOOK OP EEMBMBEANCE 
 
 ments of many dififerent poets ages apart. The prob- 
 lem is complex and requires linguistic scholarship, 
 archeology, history, religion, geography, anthology, 
 and all forms of comparative sciences. The majority 
 of the most learned Hellenists of Germany and of 
 Britain declare that " Homer " cannot be the name 
 of any one person at all. The Iliad was likely com- 
 posed eight or nine hundred years before Christ. It 
 was handed down orally for many generations. 
 
 Edmund Burke calls the " Venerable Bede " the 
 father of English learning. He was the flower of a 
 monastic institution. Born 673 a. d. His greatest 
 work was his forty volumes of Ecclesiastical History. 
 He was the originator of English history. His style 
 has much of the charm of Biblical prose. Bede's 
 studies were encyclopedic in character. He was Bible 
 made. It was Alfred the Great who opened the way 
 for the creation of a true English literature for the 
 people. English literature lost much under the Dan- 
 ish marauders. Bede's translation of the Gospel of 
 John was lost. 
 
 Cervantes' " Don Quixote," even in its natural as- 
 pects, is a book that has all the dimensions of life, 
 personal, geographical, historical, emotional, moral. 
 It sweats Spain as an olive does oil. Character is 
 deeper than circumstances. Don Quixote is one of 
 the world's heroes. In him the soul's the thing. The 
 book makes the most destructive impeachment of life. 
 The word Quixotic has become a familiar term in all 
 languages. The height of the ridiculous. 
 
 Virgil, the poet of Rome. The morning star of the 
 Latin races. He was the climax of Latin genius. He 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 221 
 
 was the son of a small farmer in the north of Italy. 
 Buried at Naples. Virgil used the poetic art to ideal- 
 ize. As the world had been given to Rome to rule, 
 Rome had been given to Virgil to be the empire of 
 his song. This was his destiny. He was by instinct 
 and temperament a ritualist. Read the " Georgics," 
 and " ^neid " of Virgil. This last is a world poem; 
 it is his greatest. The Virgilian world: Rome at the 
 summit of her empire, rising from those seven cen- 
 turies of interminable strain. The " yEneid " is the 
 book of the old world. Virgil was the lord of lan- 
 guage. He is a personal writer. His whole story is 
 about himself. A diary of privacies. 
 
 " Nothing in Excess " was the motto inscribed over 
 the Temple of Delphi, i. e., ideal proportion. 
 
 The period stretching from Homer to Theocritus 
 was the true glory of Greece. The Greek genius, un- 
 changed from the remotest antiquity, asserts itself to- 
 day in artistic and intellectual tendencies that promise 
 to become achievements of like character with those 
 that were the glory of ancient Greece. 
 
 The great Victorian poets are steeped in Greek 
 
 study. 
 
 ^schylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes still inter- 
 est us, because their plays deal with humanity and the 
 nature of man is unchanging. 
 
 In testing the beauty of form the Greeks submitted 
 the written word, prose and verse alike, to the imme- 
 diate judgment of the ear. 
 
222 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 A classic is a work that has received the suffrage 
 of generations. It is approved. It has a permanent 
 interest. It has Uterary merit. It is notable. It has 
 permanent value. It has worth and importance. It 
 is wheat left on the threshing-floor of time. It is 
 permanent literature, like " Don Quixote " and 
 " Pilgrim's Progress." Leaders of thought approve 
 it. The classics of the world are those works in 
 which geniuses of the world have most effectively 
 suggested genuine and vital emotions. 
 
 From a purely literary point of view the Bible is 
 the most important prose work in the language. It 
 is the great classic. It has shaped the faith and for- 
 tunes of all Europe and America. Coleridge says: 
 " Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from 
 being vulgar in point of style." The New Testa- 
 ment, from a literary standpoint, is infinitely less in- 
 teresting than the Old Testament. 
 
 Time moves so swiftly that we have begun to re- 
 gard the works of Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, 
 Browning, and Tennyson as among the classics. 
 They are so, however, by conduct and merit rather 
 than by age. Certainly we should be emotionally and 
 spiritually poorer without the story of Hester Prynne 
 and Arthur Dimmesdale between whom the Scarlet 
 Letter glowed balefully: without Hilda in her tower 
 and poor Miriam bereft of her fawn below; to have 
 failed to share the trial of Mr. Pickwick for breach 
 of promise; to have lived without knowing the in- 
 imitable Sam Weller; and the juicy Micawber, the 
 philanthropic Mrs. Jellyby, and the airy Harold 
 Skimpole is to have failed of acquaintances that 
 brighten existence. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 223 
 
 Victor Hugo gives his list of the sovereigns of the 
 world's roll of creators and poets. " Homer, ^schy- 
 lus, Sophocles, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Dante,* 
 Shakespeare, Rabelais, Moliere, Corneille, Voltaire." 
 His French audience rise and cry simultaneously — 
 "And Victor Hugo!" 
 
 The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the in- 
 tellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to 
 the character; the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find 
 their way to the soul. With all his morality Marcus 
 Aurelius stretched his hands for something beyond. 
 He was not satisfied. 
 
 Greek jests are very limited in quantity and quality. 
 
 Study Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, Morris. 
 They suggest classic themes. Tennyson is full of 
 classical echoes. 
 
 Alexander carried his Homer with him every- 
 where. There is a charm and power in simplicity. 
 
 NARRATIVE. 
 
 All the world loves a story. 
 
 The masters of prose in the nineteenth century in- 
 cluded great and splendid novelists, Scott, Jane Aus- 
 ten, Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Stevenson. 
 (Note his tales of the heather and the sea; his pro- 
 found and accurate analysis of character.) All moral 
 teachers. 
 
 In fiction Dickens and Thackeray are the two great 
 giants of the Victorian Age, as Tennyson and Brown- 
 
224 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 ing are in poetry. They brought sunshine into thou- 
 sands of shadowed hearts. What would the world 
 be without them? Their human sympathy, immortal 
 caricature, abounding humor. Thackeray's " Vanity 
 Fair," and " Henry Esmond " are pure gold. 
 
 Jane Austen and George Eliot are the only women 
 novelists placed in first rank Miss Austen's " Pride 
 and Prejudice " of solid worth. Her style is so per- 
 fectly adapted to her matter that to the uninitiated it 
 seems just no style at all. Her characters belong to 
 our intimate acquaintances. 
 
 George Eliot's best books are her first. An in- 
 tensely serious woman. Her career something of an 
 anti-climax. She drifted away from the great cur- 
 rents of art towards the dreary doldrums of philoso- 
 phy and sociology. 
 
 Thomas Hardy, the greatest pessimist of the age. 
 He is the spokesman of humanity's pain. He will 
 speak for the chained Prometheus. But he has hu- 
 mor deliciously keen and true. He touches the 
 springs of loving laughter in our hearts. Read his 
 story of " The Return of the Native." 
 
 Tell the stories of the great masterpieces of litera- 
 ture. Tell them to yourself first, then tell them to 
 others; this will help in the comprehension and ap- 
 preciation of the masterpieces. An example of how 
 to tell these stories is Charles Kingsley's " Stories of 
 Greek Heroes" for his children. 
 
 The story of the ewe lamb indicted the guilty mon- 
 arch, David. Fiction has been one of life's great 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITBEATUEB 225 
 
 teachers. Jesus adopted the parable as His favorite 
 method of teaching. The most popular story in liter- 
 ature is the story of the Prodigal Son. It has fasci- 
 nated generations, softened the races of mankind. It 
 will yet win the wandering world back to the Divine 
 Father. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott is the prince of prose romancers. 
 His Waverley Novels had millions of readers. They 
 have seen their fourth generation. They contain 
 Scotland as " Don Quixote " contains Spain. He re- 
 vivified the times he treated in enduring colors. He 
 gave charm to Loch Katrine. He made his readers 
 live the life. Walter Scott both as a poet and novel- 
 ist was self-educated. His was sheer power of 
 genius. His world is a world full of people. There 
 is something theatrical in his faculty of depicting. 
 The great qualities of Scott's Waverley Novels were; 
 (a) Vivacity, (b) Emotional Power — (he liked 
 strong deeds and strong men, and he liked strong 
 emotions), (c) Creative Power. It is these things 
 that make him first of romancers as Shakespeare is 
 first of dramatists. 
 
 The school of the romanticist, Alfred de Vigny, 
 Gautier, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Georges Sand, Alfred 
 de Musset. 
 
 "David Harum" is popular. Why? Because it 
 contains one thoroughly racy character. The rest is 
 naught. 
 
 Narrative is the simplest form of literature. Yet 
 how few excel in narrative? Where they do excel 
 in it their works are immortal. Examples: "The 
 
226 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Arabian Nights," "Don Quixote" (Cervantes), 
 "Robinson Crusoe" (Defoe), "Tales from Shake- 
 speare" (Lamb), "Paul and Virginia" (St. Pierre), 
 "The Stone Mason of Saint Point" (Lamartine), 
 "A Dog of Flanders" (Ouida). Study these for 
 the cultivation of style in effective narrative. 
 
 Great novels are Christian forces. 
 
 Is there an original story? Take the Irish bull: 
 " A man said I would have been a very handsome 
 man, but they changed me in the cradle." That comes 
 from Don Quixote and is Spanish. But Cervantes 
 borrowed it from the Greeks of the fourth century 
 and the Greeks stole it from the Egyptians hundreds 
 of years back. 
 
 Guy de Maupassant knew nothing about humor, 
 for he did not find it in life. No one less bookish 
 than he. He was a simplifier. There is no research 
 in his vocabulary. He never required a rare word. 
 He does not " Orchestrate," he has not inherited the 
 " organ pipes " of Flaubert. He had simply a me- 
 chanical existence. 
 
 The plea of Jeanie Deans before the Queen for the 
 life of her condemned sister is one of the most ele- 
 vated pleas in all literature. It is so eloquent in 
 pathos and so true in human nature, Scott outdid 
 himself ("Heart of Midlothian"). Jeanie Deans is 
 the strongest woman in Scott's gallery. 
 
 Boccaccio, the Italian, in his own country brought 
 his native language to perfection. He collected the 
 current tales of his age. These he decorated with 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 227 
 
 new circumstances, and delivered in a style that has 
 no parallel for elegance, naivete, and grace. The 
 first whole editing was translated into English 1620. 
 In England its effects were powerful. From it 
 Chaucer adopted the forms in which he enclosed his 
 tales, and the general manner of his stories. In some 
 instances he simply versifies the novels of the Italian. 
 In 1566 Paynter printed many of Boccaccio's stories 
 in English in his work called " The Palace of Pleas- 
 ure." These are the pages of which Shakespeare 
 made so much use. In France Boccaccio found early 
 and illustrious imitators. Boccaccio's novel " Mel- 
 chizedek the Jew and His Three Rings " furnished the 
 foundation for the plot of " Nathan the Wise," the 
 masterpiece of Lessing, the great founder of the Ger- 
 man drama. 
 
 Daniel Defoe was despised by the whole guild of 
 respectable writers of his day. He was despised as 
 an illiterate fellow, a vulgar huckster. " Robinson 
 Crusoe " has lived longest because it lives most. It 
 is his masterpiece. There we have his genius real- 
 ized. Novelty has always been a source of interest. 
 He had the unrivalled genius of " lying like the 
 truth." The central idea round which Robinson Cru- 
 soe is organized is the position of a man cast ashore 
 on a desert island, abandoned to his own resources, 
 suddenly shot beyond help or counsel from his fel- 
 lowmen. His perplexities unexpected; and his ex- 
 pedients for meeting them unexpected. Yet the per- 
 plexities and expedients so real and lifelike that 
 when we are told of them we wonder we have not 
 thought of them before. Defoe had the genius of 
 circumstance and invention, a genius for lying like 
 
228 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 the truth. The subject had fascinated him. He was 
 a man who gave himself up to the luxury of grieving. 
 
 When Kipling takes three average soldiers of the 
 line (The Black Riders), ignorant, lying, swearing, 
 dog-fighting, smoking, and by telling of them holds 
 a world in throes, that is art. It is high art. To be 
 able to appreciate this is the next thing to being able 
 to do it yourself. Kipling himself is quite a com- 
 monplace person. He is neither handsome nor mag- 
 netic. He is plain and manly. He is a marvel of 
 insight. Keep close to the ground as a writer, if you 
 would hold people. Ring true. 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 Henry Drummond lays down this rule by which to 
 judge a man, viz., — The words he uses most. We 
 each have a small set or stock of words, which al- 
 though we are scarcely aware of it we always work 
 with. They express all that we mean by life. They 
 have become ours by natural selection; so true is this 
 that it may be roughly said " our vocabulary is our 
 history," " our favorite words are ourselves." So 
 true is this that Drummond undertook to unlock and 
 interpret Christ Himself by His favorite words. 
 They are simple and few. Some half dozen embrace 
 His theology. Such words as these, "Life," 
 "Love," "Trust," "Father." These were central 
 words with Him. Around these revolve all the du- 
 ties He enjoins, all the grand hopes He begets, all the 
 inspiring relationships into which He invites. 
 Around these revolve all that perfect life of His, 
 which He places before mankind as a complete ex- 
 ample. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 229 
 
 Shakespeare used twenty-five thousand words. 
 The American writers use four thousand. 
 
 Language is fossil poetry, — example, " Sincere " 
 means " Without Wax," pure strained honey, trans- 
 parent. The man who coined that word had a poet's 
 feeling and the poet's eye. 
 
 It takes a great many years of practice to become 
 an artist in words. 
 
 Milton uses thirteen thousand one hundred words 
 and it is estimated that the Bible employs only six 
 thousand. 
 
 There is but a handful of real English words be- 
 ginning with the letter " P." 
 
 Dionysius says : " There is a marvellous attraction 
 and enthralling charm in appropriate and striking 
 words. Beautiful words are the very and peculiar 
 light of the mind." 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson, that beautiful master of 
 words, noted for his dexterity and grace, says : " I 
 lived with words." 
 
 RELIGION IN BOOKS. 
 
 Robert Browning is a sure witness, and so is 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Mr. Chesterton in his brilliant monograph on H. 
 G. Wells says : " Paganism deals always with a light 
 shining on things; Christianity with a light shining 
 
230 A BOOK OP EEMBMBEANCB 
 
 through things. That is why the whole renascence 
 coloring is opaque, the whole of pre-Raphaelite color- 
 ing transparent." 
 
 Goethe, Dante, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Brown- 
 ing, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Carlyle, Lessing, all 
 masters of literature! They all put themselves back 
 of the doctrine that " as a man's desires are so is the 
 man." 
 
 In literature of the best order you have the great 
 facts and principles of the Bible reproduced and given 
 a new life on earth. I read in Shakespeare the maj- 
 esty of the moral law; in Victor Hugo the sacredness 
 of childhood; in Goethe the glory of renunciation; in 
 Wordsworth the joy of humility; in Tennyson the 
 triumph of immortal love; in Browning the courage 
 of faith; in Thackeray the ugliness of hypocrisy and 
 the beauty of forgiveness; in George Eliot the su- 
 premacy of duty; in Dickens the divinity of kind- 
 ness; and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving 
 teaches us the lesson of simple-hearted cheerfulness; 
 Hawthorne teaches us the intense reality of the inner 
 life and the hatefulness of sin; Longfellow gives us 
 the soft music of tranquil hope and earnest endeavor; 
 Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to 
 our fellowmen if we would bless them; Whittier 
 sings to us of human brotherhood and divine father- 
 hood. Are not these Christian lessons and sermons? 
 
 If you deal in literature you will deal in life. You 
 will be practical and helpful and vital. Literature is 
 life, life written up, and made understandable and 
 attractive. 
 
PmLOSt)PHT AND LITEEATUEE 231 
 
 ETHICS. 
 
 Four of Browning's fundamental articles of faith 
 are: 
 
 1. The doctrine of elective affinities. 
 
 2. The doctrine of success through failure. 
 
 3. The doctrine that time is measured, not by the 
 day and calendar, but by the intensity of spiritual ex- 
 periences. 
 
 4. The doctrine that life on earth is a trial and 
 a test of what will be in the higher and happier de- 
 velopment when the soul is freed from the limitations 
 of time and space. 
 
 Emerson had not warmth enough in him to make 
 him a religious enthusiast; but he had patriotism and 
 humanity to "make him bear steadfast witness in the 
 case of slavery. 
 
 Amiel's Journal holds us with a tireless grasp ; the 
 Confessions of Augustine can never die ; Jean Jacques 
 Rousseau's book was a favorite of such a trinity of 
 Apostles as Emerson, George Eliot, and Walt Whit- 
 man; the Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini have made 
 a mediocre man immortal. Cellini never doubted his 
 own infallibility. His religion was essentially a nat- 
 ural religion, to love his friends, to bathe in sunshine, 
 to preserve a right mental attitude, the receptive atti- 
 tude, the attitude of gratitude, and to do his work, — 
 those were for him the sum of life. 
 
 Mazzini preached the gospel of social rights, Car- 
 lyle the gospel of honest work, Matthew Arnold the 
 gospel of culture, Emerson the gospel of vanity and 
 optimism. 
 
232 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEAITCB 
 
 Christ never despairs of making bad men good. 
 Critics give " Les Miserables " the first place as a 
 moral novel; a great soul is in the book, Jean Valjean. 
 
 The three great themes of literature are God, Man, 
 Nature. 
 
 The saints and sensualists of literature. 
 
 The Saints: Wordsworth, Emerson, Tennyson, 
 Browning, Newman, Arnold. 
 
 The Sensualists: Heine, Poe, De Maupassant, 
 Byron, Burns. 
 
 Has the book some intense, germinal, comprehen- 
 sive idea that gives it vitality and character and as- 
 sures it perpetuity? Is it so instinct with thought or 
 personality as to throb and pulsate? The Essays of 
 Emerson are of this high character. " In Memo- 
 riam " is something more and greater than a mere 
 poem. It is a compendium of theology and philoso- 
 phy of the divinities and humanities in a new and 
 striking form, furnishing food for thought. 
 
 Literature does a great deal to create and hand 
 down the best ideals of life. It gives these ideals the 
 form of beauty. Great inspirations come from es- 
 says, dramas, fiction, and poetry. George Eliot 
 draws a Silas Marner, and we see that hideous thing 
 a miser, weaned from gold coins by the softer and 
 more tender gold of a little maiden's hair. Moliere 
 paints a harridan and we shudder away from the pos- 
 sibility of that same soulless passion. Dickens puts 
 before us in full length the elder Dombey that we may 
 behold the final melting of the man to whom business 
 was a God. He is led by the potent hand of a little 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 233 
 
 girl back to the real life he had so forgotten, the life 
 of simple affection and of household hearths. And 
 Balzac's Grandet files into our memory forever the 
 awful consequences of money lust, with its demoniac 
 power of warping man's noblest nature. Literature 
 of the first order is always doing this. The need for 
 literature is doubled wherever and whenever men and 
 women are in bondage to these idols of the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil. 
 
 To paint the activities of life is only to state a prob- 
 lem; and it is the mission of literature to offer a solu- 
 tion. 
 
 Emerson not only gives us thoughts but he gives 
 us the habit of thinking. The will to think for our- 
 selves. He shapes and elevates. 
 
 Froude on Calvinism — " To liberal thinkers it is 
 a system of belief incredible in itself, dishonoring to 
 its object, and as intolerable as it has been intolerant. 
 It makes human life a hideous nightmare." 
 
 HUMOR. 
 
 Humor humanizes the truth and makes it compan- 
 ionable. 
 
 W. W. Jacobs. The foremost British humorist of 
 to-day. People who do not know him had better 
 make his acquaintance at once. He keeps his char- 
 acters at cross purposes with one another until it 
 seems impossible that he should ever be able to 
 straighten out their affairs. The climaxes to his 
 farces are nothing less than masterly; they are up- 
 roariously funny. He is a prince of good story tell- 
 
234 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 ing. He is droll, full of clean, wholesome humor. 
 His books are good for tired mortals. They are as 
 refreshing as a breath of sea air {Public Opinion). 
 " He is constantly eliciting fresh admiration " (Spec- 
 tator). 
 
 1. 
 
 At Sunwich Port. 2. Light Freights. 
 
 3. 
 
 Salthaven. 4. Short Cruises. 
 
 5. 
 
 Sailor's Knots. 6. Dialstone Lane, 
 
 7. 
 
 Ships Company. 8. Captains All. 
 
 
 9. Odd Craft. 
 
 THE REASONERS. 
 
 Auguste Comte's six volumes in a nutshell is just 
 this: Comte taught that man passes through three 
 distinct mental stages in his development: 
 
 1. Man attributes all phenomena to a personal 
 God, and to this God he earnestly prays. 
 
 2. Man believes in a " Supreme Essence," a 
 " Universal Principle " or a " First Cause " and seeks 
 to discover its hiding-place. 
 
 3. Man seeks to hunt out the unknovi^able and is 
 content to live and work for the positive present good, 
 fully believing that what is best results to-morrow. 
 
 There are no such things as rewards and punish- 
 ments, as these terms are ordinarily used. There are 
 only good results and bad results. We sow and we 
 reap what we have sown. There is no God and Au- 
 guste Comte is his prophet. 
 
 Here we should give ourselves up to admiration. 
 I feel ashamed of my coldness, when I see how others 
 who only believe in His half-glory glow and en- 
 kindle and become eloquent over Him, like Strauss 
 and J. Stuart Mill, and Renan. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 235 
 
 THE COMMON PEOPLE. 
 
 To-day the people with their woes and griefs have 
 found a standing in hterature. In " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin " the candidate for hero worship is a slave ; in 
 Dickens' " Oliver Twist " society hears the cry of the 
 children. All literature has become permeated with 
 sympathy for the under classes. Great authors no 
 longer dare insult the common people. A host of 
 writers like Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Charles 
 Kingsley, and Walter Besant have given their whole 
 souls to the softening the lot of humanity. To-day 
 all literature is working for the once despised and un- 
 befriended classes. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 " Shakespeare on the Stage," 2 vols., by William 
 Winter. Actors: Macklin, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, 
 MacCready, Henry Irving and Edwin Forrest, Ed- 
 win Booth, Barrett, Mansfield, Mantell, Sothern, 
 Charlotte Cushman as Lady Macbeth, Ellen Terry as 
 Ophelia, Ada Rehan as Rosalind, Joseph Jefiferson, 
 Leslie Wallack, Kitty Clives, Sarah Siddons, Ellen 
 Tree, Helena Faucit, Adelaide Neilson, Julia Mar- 
 lowe, Helena Modjeska, Clara Morris as Lady Mac- 
 beth. Influential actors make a great eleventh chap- 
 ter. Winter worked over thirty years on these 
 volumes. It is accumulated knowledge. It is a 
 thesaurus for actors. The plays of Shakespeare af- 
 ford the widest area for the display of an actor's art. 
 If the history of the acting of each play were given 
 (materials of narrative, commentary, stage direc- 
 tions, stories of actors), it would take a whole library 
 of books. The chronicles of the theatre are great and 
 voluminous. For example, Edwin Booth acted six- 
 
236 A BOOK OF EBMBMBEAE^OE 
 
 teen parts, i. e., he was sixteen personages. That 
 gave him a wide sphere, a big career, a wide life. 
 He personated and acted Hamlet, Macbeth, King 
 Lear, Othello, lago, Shylock, Benedict, Petruchio, 
 Richelieu, Lucius, Brutus, Bertuccio, Ru)?; Bias, and 
 Don Caesar de Bazan. 
 
 " Hamlet " has been current on the stage for three 
 hundred years. Produced sixteen hundred times. 
 Scores of actors have performed as the Prince of 
 Denmark. 
 
 There is no authentic historical basis for Macbeth, 
 the most difficult of all Shakespeare's characters of 
 adequate representation. 
 
 How many actors has the character of Shylock 
 made? Kean, MacCready, Wallack, Edwin Booth, 
 Irving, Richard Mansfield. His face was marked, 
 not with lines but with cordage. He incarnated mal- 
 ice and revenge. 
 
 Douglas Jerrold said of Kean as Shylock, " He im- 
 pressed his audience like a chapter in Genesis." He 
 was a representative Hebrew. Shylock proposed to 
 gratify his revenge by committing murder under the 
 sanction of law, legal form murder. 
 
 " Othello." Shakespeare found the material for 
 this in a tale of Geraldi Cinthio, an Italian novelist, 
 1504-1573. He greatly elaborated the borrowed sub- 
 ject by his magnetic practical treatment of it. The 
 scene is in Venice. It is sometimes called the best of 
 Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 " The Merchant of Venice " has been acted no 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 237 
 
 fewer than one hundred thousand times. A great 
 success; earned thirty-five million dollars. Its vital- 
 ity comes from the fascinating charm of its style, its 
 language of human feeling. Is there any woman that 
 can vie with Portia? She is a type of blended in- 
 tellect, brilliancy, and feminine fascination. 
 
 Emerson says: " Shakespeare leans on the Bible." 
 His mind is saturated with Scripture. His writings 
 have the marks of one who has read and absorbed the 
 Bible. To take the Bible out of Shakespeare would 
 leave a great gap ; it would leave a deep wound in the 
 side. His writings contain more than twelve hundred 
 references to Scripture. 
 
 The tragic character of Shylock, less sinned against 
 than sinning. He thrills and vivifies by comic, as 
 well as terrific touches of character and emotion. 
 Here Shakespeare has real insight for his appeals, for 
 charity could not have been so keen, so profound, so 
 approved, so durable in final impression if they had 
 been put into the mouth of a good Jew. That truth 
 should speak through Shylock was a keen conception 
 of the poet. Shylock is immortal. His atrocities 
 outweigh his injuries. 
 
 The genius of Shakespeare fertilized the whole 
 field of life, and brought into our literature phrases 
 which sing like birds in the fragrant spring. 
 
 For acting, Shakespeare's plays contain superflu- 
 ous passages. 
 
 " Romeo and Juliet " as a play is almost every fibre 
 of it a dramatic amplification of " The Tragical His- 
 
238 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 tory of Romeus and Juliet " a colored poem by Ar- 
 thur Brooke, written 1562. It is a marvellous ampli- 
 fication, ingenious, affluent, eloquent, fervent, but all 
 the same the elaborate expression of an earlier w^ork 
 by another hand. His it is who says it best. 
 
 " As You Like It " is founded on a novel by 
 Thomas Lodge. " King Lear " is an ancient British 
 story. It was told over and over. Sir Walter Scott 
 says : " In the time in which King Lear was supposed 
 to have lived, the British were probably painted and 
 tattooed." 
 
 " Julius Cccsar." Shakespeare derived the histor- 
 ical material for this play from " Plutarch's Lives," 
 a translation by Thomas North (1530-1601). So 
 closely did he follow North's text that he copied its 
 errors. There were many old plays about Julius 
 Caesar. 
 
 Shylock is great. A perfect incarnation of hate. 
 Portia a perfect incarnation of love. Antonio typifies 
 constitutional melancholy; Gratiano is embodied 
 glee; Launcelot is an image of drollery and animal 
 happiness. 
 
 " Hamlet " is an inspired and modem " Book of 
 Job." 
 
 Shakespeare's language is an endless succession of 
 statues and pictures. 
 
 The primary thing in Shakespeare is action. He 
 seized all life as active in his thoughts. He led his 
 own life as actions in himself, as a career. That is 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 239 
 
 his Englishry. He was practical. He put what he 
 knew to use. He apprenticed himself to the best mas- 
 ters of comedy and tragedy. He used what he found. 
 He was successful. He had infinite interest in life. 
 It is the power to live that makes men great. The 
 theatre was to Shakespeare a profession, a career; he 
 made himself head and master of it. He was a man 
 of immense labor. By nature he was gentle and 
 sweet. Observe his quiet and his friendliness of tem- 
 perament; his companionableness and his reserve. 
 Shakespeare's life is not a life that left much record 
 of itself, but was full of golden silences. His was a 
 genius that set towards reality. The wit combats of 
 his characters are preeminently intellectual in their 
 tone. Life should be conscious of its own signifi- 
 cance. He embellished his scenes. He was at heart 
 a dramatist, fascinated by life. Withal his was the 
 aristocratic ideal of life. 
 
 Shakespeare's diction has immense suggestiveness. 
 He has the power of radiation through single expres- 
 sions, a wonderful life and meaning. Swift defines 
 style as " the right word in the right place." Sim- 
 plicity, beauty, and vigor are essential features. Each 
 sentence must be clear, vigorous, concise and chaste. 
 
 I need mental oxygen, so I read Shakespeare. The 
 man who does not read Shakespeare has dropped 
 something out of his life. 
 
 " Our myriad-minded Shakespeare." The surprise 
 classic. To neglect him is like neglecting the sun- 
 shine. He had the largest and the most comprehen- 
 sive soul. If you neglect him, you are not intellectu- 
 ally alive. 
 
240 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 Froude says " Plutarch was Shakespeare's chief 
 authority for his Greeks and Romans." 
 
 Shakespeare has given us a gallery of noble women. 
 
 CARLYLE. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle outside of the field of poetry and 
 fiction was the great figure of the century. If his 
 books were lost, his spirit would still live, for he so 
 impressed himself upon the men of his day. His 
 trumpet-call to duty still rings in our ears. His 
 watchwords renew our hearts. He flogged men vio- 
 lently yet they enjoyed the scourging. He was a tre- 
 mendous force and power for righteousness. He was 
 a literary artist. As a portrait painter his accuracy is 
 thrilling. He could depict the grotesque. His humor 
 is always grim and spontaneous ; it seizes us with con- 
 scious delight. 
 
 If you find dullness in the pages of Thomas Car- 
 lyle you impart it. He had both insight and out- 
 sight. He could transfix a man by an epithet. He 
 was the Apostle of Retributive Justice. He was the 
 embodiment of savage energy. He was an old He- 
 brew. 
 
 Carlyle was destructive rather than constructive. 
 He did his best when he got mad. For example, he 
 sympathized with Cromwell for what he destroyed, 
 with Frederick the Great for what he destroyed, with 
 Mirabeau and Danton for what they destroyed. He 
 was the prophet who went for things. Yet he tried 
 to sympathize with positive work. To Carlyle the 
 world was out of joint. He was not practical. He 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 241 
 
 denounced shams. He dealt with the everlasting yea 
 and nay. He preached the gospel of industry. He 
 uttered diatribes against idle aristocracies. He was 
 dictatorial. He appreciated the religion of the vol- 
 cano. He for the most part lived in the atmosphere 
 of scorn. He trampled furiously upon himself 
 sometimes. He was his own ideal. He manifested 
 his genius chiefly through histories. Goethe was 
 Carlyle's great literary hero. 
 
 Froude's " Carlyle," as a book, is a tomb over 
 which the lovers of Carlyle's genius will never cease 
 to shed tears. 
 
 Carlyle was an old Hebrew, he did not know 
 Christ. His Bible had no New Testament. 
 
 COMPARISONS. 
 
 Frederick Harrison thinks the Parthenon of Phidias 
 is as sacred as the IHad of Homer; Giotto's Towers 
 in Florence as precious as the " Paradiso " of Dante; 
 the Westminster Abbey of England as immortal as 
 the " Hamlet " of Shakespeare. 
 
 Writing as a means of expression has to compete 
 with talking. The talker need not rely wholly on 
 what he says ; he has the help of his mobile face and 
 voice, whereby he can insinuate fine shades of mean- 
 ing, modify, intensify what he says. The writer must 
 rely wholly on the words he chooses. By his choice 
 and use of words, he must make you hear a voice and 
 see a face. Whistler excels in this ; see his " The 
 Gentle Art of Making Enemies." He projects him- 
 self into the printed page. 
 
242 A BOOK OF EEMBMBEANCB 
 
 A fragment of a Japanese poem says: "There are 
 men who walking along the common highway will 
 pick up a stone, split it and take a gem out of it ; this 
 is because they know gems. There are men who en- 
 ter the very mountains of wealth and come out 
 empty-handed; this is because they do not know 
 gems." 
 
 " The holiness of beauty," Sidney Lanier's phrase, 
 is as precious as " The beauty of holiness." 
 
 The " Mahabharata," Hindu epic, is as old as the 
 Iliad and seven times its bulk. It is a mine of poetic 
 thought. Edwin Arnold's " The Song Celestial " or 
 " Bhagavad-Gita " is from it. 
 
 The Book of Ecclesiastes is the most modern book 
 of the Bible. It is a distinct tonic for certain inevi- 
 table moods. It has a message found in no other 
 scripture. Written, we suppose, in the Persian or 
 Greek period of Palestine's provincial history. It is 
 bare of all reference to Priests or Prophets or the 
 heroes of the Hebrews. It has a Persian, Stoic, Epi- 
 curean tinge. Yet it is thoroughly Hebraic in soul. 
 Its allusions suggest an Alexandrian source, cultured, 
 cosmopolitan, sophisticated. Its theology and ethics 
 are almost Sadducean. It has the voice of the Jew 
 of to-day. Its question is the Hebrew one, — what 
 profit? It is the only subjective book of the Bible ex- 
 cept Job. It falls under the class of Heine, Byron, 
 Pascal, and Omar Khayyam. The Persian Omar of- 
 fers the clearest analogy to this Hebrew poet. The 
 subject of both is life. The things that are done un- 
 der the sun. They both speak in scorn. They do not 
 
PHILOSOPHY Aim LITEEATUEE 243 
 
 care a little bit for life. To Omar " God is a good 
 fellow and it will all be well somehow." It reminds 
 one of Heine's blasphemy, "God will forgive; it is 
 His trade." Omar's prayer: " O God, I am weary 
 of my existence, of my anguish and of my empty- 
 handedness. Even as Thou bringest existence out of 
 non-existence so take me out of my non-existence to 
 the glory of true existence." 
 
 BOOKS SUMMARIZED. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius' " Meditations " is a most purely 
 human book of books. 
 
 " The Education of Henry Adams." A massive 
 volume. It has been greeted with a wide-spreading 
 chorus of praise. "Entrancing" is the adjective. 
 " No one can afford to disregard it." " Full of en- 
 tertaining incidents, dramatic narrative, sparkling 
 wit, keen analysis of interesting personalities, it is a 
 treasure house of joy. It is a marvellous book to 
 read about and talk about and preach about. Here 
 is art, science, literature. Here is wealth of political 
 biography, history, of life behind the scenes in inter- 
 national biography. Here are the greatest men of the 
 last fifty years." "A Treasure House of Joy!" I 
 deny it. It is the saddest book that has come from 
 the printing press in any country of the world since 
 Guttenberg invented movable type, since the author of 
 Ecclesiastes laid down his stylus and exclaimed, 
 " Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity ! " 
 
 Here is the nemesis of negation. Our human na- 
 ture needs God. This is what Frederick Harrison, 
 the High Priest of Positivism, said thirty years ago. 
 Harrison called on witnesses to prove his assertion, 
 
244 A^ BODK OP EEMEMBEAITCB 
 
 Job, David, Solomon, Wesley, the prophets, Paul, 
 Augustine, Bernard, a Kempis, Bunyan: witnesses 
 Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, Confucian, Bud- 
 dhist, Protestant, Catholic, and Deist. These all dif- 
 fer in expression, but are one in the substance of their 
 thought, " My heart and my flesh cry out for God, 
 yea, even for the living God." How about Henry 
 Adams? He writes in the third person, and this is 
 his account of the repudiation of religion: " The boy 
 went to church twice a Sunday, he was taught to read 
 the Bible: he learned religious poetry by heart: he 
 believed in a mild dream: he prayed: he went through 
 all the forms; but neither to him nor to his brothers 
 and sisters was religion real; even the mild discipline 
 of the Unitarian Church was so irksome that they all 
 threw it ofiE at the earliest possible moment and never 
 afterwards entered a church. The religious instinct 
 had vanished and could not be revived, although one 
 made in later life many efforts to recover it." (Ec- 
 clesiastes over again.) Night descended upon him 
 and left him in darkness. This agnostic attitude of 
 mind characterizes the whole book. Here is the pose 
 of the superiority of agnosticism. Adams thinks of 
 himself as an historian sitting on the outside of the 
 universe watching it go, and remarking that it does 
 not go very well. For that matter he is going too. 
 Oh, the pity of it! This man knew everybody, the 
 son of Charles Francis Adams who represented the 
 United States in London during the Civil War. He 
 knew the inside of the British Government actions. 
 It is intensely interesting. Gladstone puzzled him; 
 but he puzzles us. (The book is largely the story of 
 others. He knew everybody. John Hay was his 
 closest friend. ) He was at home in the White House 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 245 
 
 with half a dozen of the Presidents. He says as the 
 result of experience, " Power is poison. It has bad 
 effects even on Presidents ; no man is so well balanced 
 as to stand power." 
 
 "The Pure Gold of the Nineteenth Century," by 
 Wm. Lyon Phelps of Yale. An attempt to appraise 
 and assay the literary output of the nineteenth century 
 confined to British production. The Elizabethan only 
 can compare with the Victorian. 
 
 Professor Goodell of Yale has prepared a little vol- 
 ume called " The Greek in English " to facilitate the 
 acquisition of Greek. The same method has been 
 followed in the study of other languages. 
 
 "The Room with the Tassels," Carolyn Wells. 
 Ghosts: the determining factor is the dark. Ghosts 
 and haunted houses are all very well at night, but 
 daylight dispels them as sound breaks a silence. 
 
 The Tales of Anton Chekhov, the great Russian, 
 are told with breeziness and crispness and great 
 punch. Something like O. Henry. He is the pos- 
 sessor of a style called the best since de Maupassant. 
 
 O. Henry's tales contain more frame than picture. 
 
 Drummond's " Ascent of Man " is an attempt to 
 evangelize Evolution. 
 
 One of the great and original conceptions of Balzac 
 is his " Unknown Masterpiece." There is hardly a 
 work of equal brevity in modem literature which has 
 been the object of so much envy and admiration. It 
 is profound reading of the very heart of life. The 
 
246 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCE 
 
 story is of an artist at work on the great picture of 
 his life, a beautiful woman. He meant it to be per- 
 fection. He had the fancy that as he worked the 
 canvas became endued with life, the woman loved, he 
 had wonderful fellowship with her. To illustrate a 
 point he was arguing with two fellow artists, he drew 
 the curtain and showed them his masterpiece. They 
 were amazed to find no figure at all — only a mere 
 mass of paint. Moral — don't make your ideal im- 
 possible. 
 
 « 
 
 Guy de Maupassant's "A Piece of String" is a 
 veritable gem. A peasant who picked up a piece of 
 string was accused of picking up a lost pocketbook. 
 He died of grief because of the false accusation. 
 " The Necklace " is another of his gems. A poor 
 young couple went to a fashionable reception. It 
 meant a new dress for the ambitious wife. She bor- 
 rowed a necklace — lost it — grew old in paying for it. 
 When old and worn out, she learned it was only 
 paste. 
 
 George Eliot's " Romola " stands forth as the his- 
 tory of the soul, its decline and fall. At the begin- 
 ning the beautiful boy Tito was crowned with inno- 
 cence and purity, but at last he stands forth covered 
 with infamy and shame as with garments of pollu- 
 tion. 
 
 In the "House of Seven Gables" Hawthorne 
 exhibits one generation as sowing sins that are seeds, 
 whose harvests of penalty are garnered by genera- 
 tions that follow after. 
 
 In his " Scarlet Letter " Hawthorne selects the one 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 247 
 
 sin that has the most reasons against acknowledg- 
 ment or confession and the one man in the commu- 
 nity who would suffer the most by telling the truth, 
 and he makes the sinner humbly confess. 
 
 The gist of Drummond's book " Natural Law in 
 the Spiritual World " is the analogy between God's 
 sons in the realm of matter and His laws in the realm 
 of spirit. 
 
 George Eliot says of John Ruskin; "He teaches 
 with the inspiration of a Hebrew Prophet." So does 
 Carlyle. A volume of over three hundred pages 
 shows the Scripture passages in Ruskin's writings. 
 It is by Mary and Ellen Gibbs. Ruskin has the Old 
 Testament delight in nature. 
 
 Harriet Martineau condensed August Comte's six 
 volumes into two volumes. Her condensation is the 
 superior work. " To achieve," said Comte, " you 
 must be married to your work." 
 
 Froude's " Essay on Lucian." The men of genius 
 who had the misfortune, under the later Roman Em- 
 perors, to be blind to the truth of Christianity have 
 been punished by neglect which they do not wholly 
 deserve. They were charged with wilful sin. Taci- 
 tus is an example. To neglect them causes a greater 
 loss than we are aware of. They have literary mer- 
 its. It is desirable that we become acquainted with 
 the age in which Christianity became the creed of the 
 civilized world. It grew in natural causes out of the 
 conscience and intellect of man. Why were they un- 
 convinced? How did the new creed appear to them? 
 
248 A BOOK OP EEMEMBEAK^CE 
 
 Nine out of ten would say Lucian was a scoffer and 
 atheist who lived 120 a. d. He passed Christianity 
 by as one of a thousand illusions. With lightning- 
 like mockery and satire he struck at the absurdities 
 of polytheism and paganism. He detested falsehood 
 with a passion. Really he and his father were fight- 
 ing on the same side. His satire was pungent. He 
 had the keenness of Voltaire and the jest of Swift. 
 Paganism was expiring and Christianity was taking 
 its place. He never gave Christianity more than a 
 passing attention. To him it was only one of the 
 passing struggling sects, an offshoot of Judaism. 
 He was constitutionally incredulous. Tales of 
 miracles and mysteries only made him suspicious. 
 The story of the child of a Galilean artisan of one 
 hundred years ago, had been born of a virgin, had 
 worked miracles, had been put to death, had gone 
 down to Hades, and had again returned to life, — why, 
 he would have answered that he could match that 
 story by a hundred parables from his contemporary 
 experience. Each generation produced its own 
 swarm of pretenses to supernatural powers. An 
 aged student in one of his dialogues confesses to 
 have spent sixty years in comparing the schools of 
 philosophy still hoping to find the truth, but still un- 
 able to decide. llucian tells of Peregrinus, a man 
 who feasted and lived on notoriety. To get notoriety 
 he announced that at the next Olympian Festival he 
 would give the world a lesson in the contempt of 
 death and would publicly bum himself. He expected 
 that his admirers would interfere and prevent, but 
 they did not. So he was in for it. When the pile 
 was raised and kindled he had to leap into the flames. 
 He did and perished, lyucian himself was present. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEE 249 
 
 Some one asked him to describe the scene. Amonp- 
 other things he said, " An eagle rose out of the flames 
 and soared to heaven." He felt that he was talking 
 to fools. This story which he himself had invented 
 passed at once into popular belief. It was afterwards 
 retailed to himself by another spectator who declared 
 he had witnessed the extraordinary portent with his 
 own eyes. This shows how impossible things get 
 themselves believed. After such an experience it was 
 not likely that Lucian would give easy credence to 
 the tales of miracles and Christianity. Lucian was 
 born at Samosata, not far from Antioch, 130 a. d. 
 
 Of "The Light of Asia" O. W. Holmes writes: 
 " It is a work of great beauty. It tells a story of in- 
 tense interest. ItS; descriptions are drawn by the 
 hand of a master, with the eye of a poet, and with 
 the familiarity of an expert concerning the things 
 described. Its tone is so lofty that there is nothing 
 to which to compare it but the New Testament. It 
 is full of variety, now picturesque, now pathetic, now 
 rising into the noblest realms of thought and senti- 
 ment. In Edwin Arnold Indian poetry and Indian 
 thought have at length found a worthy English ex- 
 ponent. It is the craftsmanship of a literary pen. 
 Arnold idealizes just like the writers of the New Tes- 
 tament." (Does he Christianize Buddha, or does he 
 Paganize the Christ?) 
 
 It would be difficult to find a more satisfactory 
 analysis of the great religions than is contained in the 
 hundred pages devoted to sacred books and how they 
 originated in " The Sphere of Religion " by Frank 
 Sargent Hoffman, 
 
250 A BOOK OF EEMEMBEANCB 
 
 "The Greek Heroes" (Charles Kingsley — written 
 for children but mighty fine). 
 
 " Rab and His Friends," John Brown, M. D. A 
 masterpiece of descriptive writing, such force and 
 simplicity and naturalness. It illustrates how to take 
 the commonest things of life and make them alive 
 with interest. A brindle and grey dog; but a Hercu- 
 les of a dog. A stub of a tail; but it was expressive. 
 It spake. 
 
 Ouida's " Dog of Flanders " translated into differ- 
 ent languages interests thousands. How does she tell 
 her story? There is study here. 
 
 Margaret Fuller was a talker, she was the talker, 
 she was the genius of talk. She wrote the story of 
 " The Brook Farm." It was to be a thorough appli- 
 cation of the professed principles of fraternity to 
 actual relations, a joint stock company. 
 
 " Paris " by Zola. It is both descriptive and ana- 
 lytical. Many of its scenes are intensely dramatic. 
 In it are both beauty of the flesh and of the mind. 
 Some characters horrify the reader. There are black 
 pages. 
 
 " Mademoiselle de Maupin," by Gautier. Next to 
 Hugo comes Gautier, then Flaubert. Gautier was 
 born 1811. He studied painting for a time; but laid 
 aside the brush for the pen. His introduction to 
 Victor Hugo when he was nineteen years old deter- 
 mined this. His characteristics, spontaneity, fluency 
 of expression, continuity of thought. De Maupin 
 was given to the world in 1836. Rich poetic coloring. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AND LITEEATUEB 251 
 
 He possessed the instincts of a painter. As a writer 
 he rejoices in form, light, color and in language that 
 expresses these. The keenness of his pictorial sense. 
 He aimed at a closer connection between literature 
 and the sister arts of painting and sculpture. Had he 
 an insight into humanity? Critics say "No." For 
 politics, social development, religious problems, 
 science and progress, he does not care a straw. No 
 deep teaching, therefore, is to be looked for in him, 
 no discovery of new truth, or fresh presentation of 
 old. His ideal is simply beauty. " Mile, de Mau- 
 pin " especially shows his genius. It is an exquisite 
 lyric in prose, a glorious song in praise of the au- 
 thor's ideal, beauty. 
 
Alphabetical Index 
 
 Sub-Title Chapter Page 
 
 Beauty VII 162 
 
 Bible, The I 33, 
 
 Bible Helps I 28 
 
 Books Summarized VIII 243 
 
 Carlyle VIII 240 
 
 Children V 151 
 
 Christ I 13 
 
 Church, The I 29 
 
 Classics, The VIII 216 
 
 Common People, The VIII 235 
 
 Companionship IV 141 
 
 Comparisons VIII 241 
 
 Conversation IV 143 
 
 Death I 90 
 
 Defeat IV 137 
 
 Denunciation IV 137 
 
 Desires IV 136 
 
 Development IV 143 
 
 Duties IV 134 
 
 Eloquence IV 142 
 
 Ethics VIII 231 
 
 Evidences for Eternity I 85 
 
 Faith II 96 
 
 Fathers and Mothers V 150 
 
 God's Logic I 72 
 
 Great Eives IV 120 
 
 Heroic Heart, The II 99 
 
 High Society IV 138 
 
 History VI 152 
 
 Human Will, The I 72 
 
 Humor VIII S33 
 
 Illustrations VIII 216 
 
 Inspiration II 105 
 
 Jews, The I 93 
 
 Literary Art VIII 179 
 
 Little Sermons I 40 
 
 253 
 
254 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 
 Sub-Tiile Chapter Page 
 
 Lord's Supper, The I 73 
 
 Love II 98 
 
 109 
 31 
 
 Maxims II 
 
 Ministers I 
 
 Music VII 171 
 
 Narrative VIII 223 
 
 Nature and the Eternal I 86 
 
 Patriotism Ill II7 
 
 Peace and War Ill 119 
 
 Personalities IV 129 
 
 Personal Side, The VIII 202 
 
 Philosophy VIII 178 
 
 Poets VIII 192 
 
 Prayers I 55 
 
 Prophets I 92 
 
 Prose Writers, The .VIII 188 
 
 Punishment IV 137 
 
 Puritanism . ; I 94 
 
 Reading VIII 185 
 
 Reasoners, The VIII 234 
 
 Religion in Books VIII 229 
 
 Science and the Soul. I 89 
 
 Self- Examination II 107 
 
 Shakespeare VIII 235 
 
 Side Lights VIII 216 
 
 Statesmanship Ill 119 
 
 Study VIII 184 
 
 Symbolism VII 168 
 
 Sympathy II 98 
 
 Thanksgiving 11 100 
 
 Theatre, The VII 173 
 
 Travel VI 160 
 
 Truth 11 98 
 
 Wealth IV 138 
 
 Wedded State, The V 149 
 
 Women IV 139 
 
 Words VIII 228 
 
 Work IV 134 
 
 Writers and Non-Writers VIII 187 
 
 Youth and Age IV 147 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
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